


Love's Blind Chance

by Nemainofthewater



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Don't copy to another site, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Gen, Geralt and Yennefer's terrible childhoods, Humour, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Murder Mystery, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Post-Canon, Swearing, Thriller, Transformation, and issues with non-consensual transformation, post canon where they're all retired to the countryside, that's a very bad habit, the three of them need to stop flirting over corpses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:35:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25929739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemainofthewater/pseuds/Nemainofthewater
Summary: Jaskier peered down at the body on the floor and repressed the urge to gag. Its eyes stared back up at him, glassy in death. It was a mass of twisted flesh and orange fur that looked as if it had been melted together by a particularly inept glassblower. A particularly inept glassblower who had decided that firing up his workshop was a perfectly good idea three hours after sundown and after at least five shots of vodka. Something that might have been a tail was curled limply around the things-that-were-possibly-paws, providing what might have been a modicum of comfort in what had to have been an extremely painful situation, if the twisted agony on the thing’s face was any indicator. Its eyes were the only thing that were still noticeably, terrifyingly human, and they bored into Jaskier, seeming to stare straight through him.“Oh,” Jaskier said faintly. “That’s, er- that’s a bit not good.”Geralt, Jaskier, and Yennefer are called to a small Redanian village to investigate a gruesome murder. Now, if only they could stop flirting over the corpses…
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 27
Kudos: 180





	Love's Blind Chance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ThebanSacredBand](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThebanSacredBand/gifts).



> Thebes! You are my best friend and my best enabler and I love you so much. Please take this humble offering, and I hope that you enjoy it (despite your abysmally slow reading speed ;) ) 
> 
> Many thanks to EC_Sydney, Schrodingerstiger, and Galanthus_nivalis for letting me vent about writing troubles and being there for the time when I just wanted to delete entire scenes in a fit of exasperation at my characters (you know who you are). I truly appreciate you all, and this story would not have been finished without you. Special thanks to Sydney at whom I shoved 20k of fic and went ‘DOES THIS WORK?????’.  
> The title is from Wolven Storn (Priscilla’s Song) from the Witcher 3.

Jaskier peered down at the body on the floor and repressed the urge to gag. Its eyes stared back up at him, glassy in death. It was a mass of twisted flesh and orange fur that looked as if it had been melted together by a particularly inept glassblower. A particularly inept glassblower who had decided that firing up his workshop was a perfectly good idea three hours after sundown and after at least five shots of vodka. Something that might have been a tail was curled limply around the things-that-were-possibly-paws, providing what might have been a modicum of comfort in what had to have been an extremely painful situation, if the twisted agony on the thing’s face was any indicator. Its eyes were the only thing that were still noticeably, terrifyingly human, and they bored into Jaskier, seeming to stare straight through him.

“Oh,” Jaskier said faintly. “That’s, er- that’s a bit not good.”

Geralt rolled his eyes and Yennefer laughed at him, but he maintained the validity of his statement, though perhaps he could have come up with something a less… understated. Something that he had never thought he would say about himself!

Jaskier had become used to seeing bodies of every age, species, and state of decomposition in his years both travelling with Geralt of Rivia as his personal (and extremely successful!) barker. Not to mention his work during the Nilfgaardian invasion as a spy; those years had indeed contributed numerous images that still haunted his dreams to the day (as well as a deep-seated aversion to swimming underwater), but there hadn’t been anything like _this._

Early that morning, a corpse had been found in the woods just outside of the village. A common enough occurrence, one might think. Or at least, in Jaskier’s experience, if not common then not exactly _uncommon_ either; after all, people were always getting drunk and then getting into regrettable situations such as bar fights, brawls, or dares to prove that they actually could fly by launching themselves off the highest tree in the village. Jaskier spoke from experience, having no only been a student, but having also spent a considerable amount of time teaching a class of 20 somethings who thought that they were invulnerable, and that the laws of the universe did not apply to them.

If it had only been a corpse, the villagers might have shaken their heads, chalked it up to youthful enthusiasm, and they wouldn’t have been summoned. Yennefer’s abilities were, of course, great and powerful etc etc but she was not known for her healing prowess. More her ‘make everything explode and then set it on fire’ skills. And not even the great Geralt of Rivia could do anything to stop young- and not so young for that matter- idiots being young idiots.

The fact of the matter was, the three of them had been roused from their warm bed by the frantic knocks from a local messenger, crying about the atrocities and evils that had befallen the village, and forced into the cold morning air. None of them had ever actually _visited_ the local village- Jaskier wasn’t even sure what it was called, probably something boring and unmemorable- but as it was the nearest human settlement to their house, it had seemed prudent that they keep on good terms with it. At least that was what Geralt had said, which was hilarious considering his general dislike of interacting with anyone or anything that wasn’t his horse. Present company excluded. Probably.

“It stinks of magic,” Geralt said, crouching down to examine the body further. He didn’t touch it, but the flare of his nostrils and his soft scowl were a good indication that not only had he found something, but it was something troubling. Jaskier wasn’t certain whether magic had a scent- true, Yennefer had long been characterised by lilac and gooseberry, but that could just be the fragrance of her perfumes- but he trusted Geralt’s instincts. And if he said that there was magic here, then there was magic. That and the fact that Jaskier wasn’t sure what else could have been the cause of the twisted wreck of the corpse in front of them. 

“Yennefer,” Geralt said, rising to his feet, “can you-”

The sorceress was already in action, sweeping her arms forward in an unnecessarily dramatic gesture- not that Jaskier was complaining, he was all about the drama- that left golden sparks in its wake. The sparks hung in the air for a moment before drifting down to settle onto the corpse. It was…surprisingly pretty for one of Yennefer’s spells.

Then the spell flared and a tangible smell of rot and decay filled the air. Jaskier gagged again, swallowing nervously over and over to keep down his breakfast. Ah, there it was. The catch.

The smell wasn’t the only thing that had suddenly appeared; the body was now overlaid with a darkly pulsing red and purple net that reminded Jaskier as nothing so much as rotting meat. The similarity was not helped by the fact that there were bulbous _things_ crawling all over it, not dissimilar to maggots on a long-rotted corpse.

“This is lovely,” Jaskier said. “Truly lovely, exactly what I needed to see this fine, autumn morning, top work there Yennefer.” He steeled himself and took a tentative step forward to peer down at what had been a corpse. Nope, still disgusting. “What exactly is it, though?”

“I cast a spell to reveal the magic,” Yennefer said. She was making more arcane hand gestures, ones that had no visible effect, but which were making her frown in concentration and concern. The hem of her long, gorgeous, thoroughly impractical dress was getting dragged through the mud and mire and magic, and Jaskier made a mental note to _burn it_ as soon as they got back home. Yennefer had dozens of beautiful dresses and the means to get more; he would _personally_ replace the dress the next time they were anywhere near a large city. He just didn’t think he could ever look at that particular dress again without thinking of this exact moment.

“No, I got that from the whole-” Jaskier made an elaborate hand gesture approximating Yennefer’s spell which, judging from Geralt amused snort behind him was heavy on the elaboration and low on the approximation, “-sorceress-y thing that you were doing. But the spell isn’t meant to do that, is it? I mean- I know that I can’t ‘sense magic’ like you two can, but I’m pretty sure that if all magic looked like that then there’d be far fewer mages in the world.”

“You’re underestimating the lengths that people go to for power,” Geralt rumbled from behind him, casually yanking Jaskier back from where he’d jumped in surprise and had been on the verge of falling straight onto the corpse, and incidentally ruining his nice, new, non-monster gut stained clothes. He would _definitely_ have burnt his clothes if that had happened. He and Yennefer could have had a nice, toasty bonfire in the back garden.

“You did that on purpose!” Jaskier said, hands akimbo, voice rising in an indignant shriek but he couldn’t maintain his disgruntled expression for long. Not when his Witcher’s crinkled eyes betrayed the fact that Geralt was laughing at him.

“Perhaps,” was all that Geralt said, but after decades of travelling beside another person Jaskier had developed a _very_ competent Geralt-to-everyone-else dictionary (it was all in the eyes and the corner of the mouth) and knew that Geralt had _definitely_ done that on purpose.

“Yennefer,” Jaskier whined, draping himself over the sorceress, carefully avoiding the horrible, pulsing magic, “Geralt is using his infantile sense of humour to mock me. Again. Make him stop, won’t you darling?”

“Geralt,” Yennefer said, making no attempt to dislodge Jaskier, which he counted as a win, honestly, “Your bard is being his usual, annoying self. Make him stop. Take him for his daily walk.”

“ _Yennefer!_ ” Jaskier gasped, hand on his heart and leaning back to give her his best and most practised shocked look. “How could you say such a hurtful thing to me? Alas, I am betrayed on all sides; I shall have to flee from my lovers’ cruel words. Maybe to Oxenfurt; they have been begging me to take up a permanent post every time I guest lecture. Perhaps I’ll have an ill-advised affair with Valdo Marx, write a scathing review of his latest work, and then retire into obscurity on the proceeds.”

“Hmm,” Geralt said. “It sounds like too much work.” He walked over to the pair of them, placing himself between Jaskier and the corpse, incidentally hiding it from view and allowing Jaskier to take a breath of relief. “And you would have to put up with Valdo Marx,” the Witcher continued ponderously, shaking his head in mock-solemnity.

“That is very true,” Jaskier said. “Perhaps not the best plan that I have ever come up with in my long and illustrious career.”

“Perhaps you could alter it slightly,” Yennefer said, and oh- Jaskier couldn’t stop himself from giving a little moan as he felt the full weight of her attention fall on him. “I’m certain that there are other people you could have your ill-fated affair with.” She leant forward, her breath warm against his cheek, and whispered, “Just think of the travel time that you could save-”

Jaskier licked his lips, trying to conceal the little hitch in his breath. A useless endeavour, especially since he could feel Geralt staring at him as well, his gaze full of promise.

“Well,” he croaked. “The exploits of both a Witcher and a Sorceress are far more fertile ground than those of a washed-up troubadour like Marx. Perhaps we could return home and I could start my er, my research-”

“Um,” came a voice from behind them, making Jaskier jump in fright as he was abruptly brought back down to the, regrettably corpse-filled, reality, “Sir Witcher, Lady Sorceress, master bard. Does that mean that you won’t help?”

Jaskier turned around to see that Alderman of the village- whose name he couldn’t remember for the life of him- was staring at them all. He hadn’t even noticed the other man approach- though he would wager that he was the only one. Damn Yennefer’s exhibitionist tendencies! His only saving grace was that the Alderman looked at _least_ as uncomfortable as he was. He supposed that living in a small village on the Redanian coast did not lend itself to the same levels of worldliness as the three of them.

Geralt shifted slightly, and Jaskier winced. Ah. Or maybe it was because of the terribly mutilated corpse that the man had hired them to investigate.

“Oh no,” Jaskier said brightly. “You did the right thing by calling us here. We have _definitely_ seen this sort of thing before, and I have no doubt that my associates and I can solve your little problem. For an appropriate fee, of course.”

Beside him, Geralt looked quietly pained. Jaskier ignored him with the ease of long practice. Despite his protestations to the contrary, if left to his own devices Geralt was more likely than not to forgo his pay if the person who had commissioned his services looked sufficiently downtrodden. Or if the Alderman was particularly brutal when it came to his ‘alternate bartering’- i.e. shamelessly ripping the Witcher off once the threat had been taken care of- then if he was tired enough after his fight he would merely back down and retreat to lick his wounds rather than having to go through the agonising process of arguing for fair pay.

Well. All that had changed once Jaskier had started travelling with Geralt in earnest. Once he had realised what exactly the problem had been, that was. Alas, an eighteen-year-old, no matter how mature, is by nature a selfish creature, and Jaskier, even at his most delusional and flamboyant, knew that he had been an oblivious little shit at eighteen. It had taken him well over a decade to realise that Geralt’s habitual reticence was more than a grumpy nature- that the Witcher was in fact _shy._

Needless to say, Jaskier had taken a larger role in collecting the previously negotiated pay after that revelation. And once Yennefer had joined them… well to be honest, not a lot had changed, except Jaskier had someone with whom to alternate ‘good mage, crazy bard’ (or vice versa) when it came to intimidating fee dodgers.

Alas, the incredibly satisfying feeling of watching an Alderman almost piss themselves in fear did not happen as often nowadays, as by that point all three of them had slid into not-exactly-retirement, or whatever it was called when three individuals decided to shack up in a ‘conveniently empty’ manor house in Redania. It was not-exactly-retirement because none of them had stopped working per se, they just went to their various contracts and clients in the sure and certain knowledge that they had somewhere to return to once they had finished.

They did try and go out on an interesting contract together every month or so, though. It was a good bonding experience, or so Triss had claimed as she had physically pushed them through the portal the first time they had all gone travelling together. The fact that Geralt, despite his Witcher strength, hadn’t objected spoke volumes, and those volumes read that he had been _incredibly_ bored hanging around their house with only the occasional explosion to provide entertainment. If this contract were one of those outings, Jaskier might have been less snappish, but the fact was that the three of them had been woken at an ungodly hour of the morning to come and see a truly disgusting corpse when they could have been in bed. Doing more important (and infinitely more pleasurable) things.

So yes, they were definitely going to get paid for this one. Just because they were able to live comfortably, however, didn’t mean that Jaskier was going to _stop_ holding village Aldermen to fair prices. If not for Geralt, then for the next Witcher that came along. It was the principle of the thing.

“Of course, of course, master bard,” the Alderman said, his head bobbing up and down as though attached to a spring. He was a young man, or at least as far as Jaskier could tell; despite the dark bags underneath his eyes and the exhaustion writ in every line of her body his face was smooth and unlined, and his hair was thick and dark. It was, however, his demeanour that made betrayed his youth; the man was pathetically grateful that all three of them had come in response to his plea. Despite years of rehabilitating Geralt’s reputation, that was still very much outside the norm.

Staring into his eyes as the Alderman assured them- his gaze flitting from amused sorceress to exasperated Witcher, before settling on Jaskier as the presumed ‘friendliest’ face- that of course they would pay all three of them for their time and expertise, and pay them handsomely, Jaskier felt the smallest pangs of guilt. He purposefully didn’t look at Geralt.

“Has anyone gone missing in the village?” Geralt was clearly ready to get down to business and go, the tension in his voice unmistakable to any who knew him. Glancing over at Yennefer, Jaskier was reassured to see the faint furrow in her brow as she looked back at him; he wasn’t imagining things. Yennefer had heard it too. In unison, the two of them looked over at Geralt who ignored them both.

“Not that I’ve heard,” the Alderman replied. He hadn’t noticed the interplay, too busy staring at Geralt in gratitude. “And I don’t recognise the, the-” he looked down at the mangled corpse lying to the side of them and had to take a deep breath before continuing, “-body.”

“I doubt that many would recognise it,” Yennefer said briskly, turning her attention from Geralt; though the set of her lips signalled that she wasn’t giving up. “Whoever our mysterious corpse is, they’ve been subjected to an enormous amount of magic.”

“Dark magic?” Jaskier asked, thinking again of the pulsing maggots crawling over the body. If that didn’t qualify as black magic, then he would eat his bonnet, feather and all. His faint nausea still hadn’t abated, and from the green-tinged pallor of the Alderman’s face, he felt the same.

It was Geralt and Yennefer’s turn to exchange a look, Geralt shaking his head almost imperceptibly. Yennefer’s lips tightened, but she didn’t say anything, her face a professional mask of neutrality.

“Perhaps,” the sorceress said. Jaskier narrowed his eyes. Yennefer had never been noncommittal in her life. She was loudly and unabashedly herself at every moment, and it was one of the things that Jaskier loved about her. When he wasn’t busy being annoyed at her, that was.

“Yennefer?” he asked, raising an inquisitive eyebrow in lieu of asking directly. She just hummed- a sound more suited to Geralt than either of them- and turned to the Alderman.

“I need more time to study the body,” she said, “before I can say anything for certain.”

“Does the studying have to be here?” Jaskier asked, gesturing vaguely around to encompass what could have been ‘next to this body’, ‘this shitty village in the middle of nowhere’, or even ‘anywhere that wasn’t their home’. It was possible that he had become incredibly spoilt by living in a house that was magically staffed, but faced with the glorious luxury of hot water on demand, who wouldn’t be?

“Not here specifically, but it will be easier if we stayed in the village for the time being,” Yennefer said, the wrinkle of her nose attesting to the fact that she was as enthused by the thought as he was.

“Of course, Lady Yennefer,” the Alderman said. “We, er, we don’t have a boarding house as such, but Jagoda’s granddaughter left to get married a few days ago, and she will be honoured to have you stay with her for the time being.”

#

Jagoda was _not_ delighted by the prospect of hosting them. That much was clear from the moment that she laid eyes on them. 

“What is this, Milosz?” she barked, clutching her broom just that bit tighter in her hands as she took in her new houseguests. Milosz- the Alderman Jaskier presumed, as there was nobody else around- quailed beside him, and Jaskier mentally removed another five years from his age.

“Jagoda,” Milosz said- and had his voice just broken? How long had he had this job exactly, and what idiot had given him this much responsibility?- “Lady Yennefer, Sir Geralt, and Master Jaskier have come to help-”

“Pah!” the woman responded, brandishing her broom with an ease that spoke of long practice. “Help, have they? And what help can they provide?” She pointed one surprisingly elegant finger at Geralt- Jaskier absently wondered if she played any instruments because those fingers were just _made_ for the lute- and barked out, “At least that one looks as though he can swing a sword! Those two on the other hand-” the finger swept out to point at Yennefer and Jaskier, “-those two look as though a stiff wind would blow them over!”

Jaskier blinked. Exchanged a bemused look with Yennefer who, thankfully, hadn’t transformed the other woman into something small and slimy on the spot. He had been called many things in his life, and not all of them complimentary, but this was the first time that he had been called ‘delicate’. After decades of trotting after a Witcher, getting into and out of scrapes and bar fights, he definitely wouldn’t say that anything as banal as a stiff wind would be the thing to fell him.

And he had no idea how Jagoda had come to the conclusion that _Yennefer_ was someone delicate and unsuited to the rigours of professional Witcher-ing. True, she was dressed in her _very_ unsuitable (but incredibly sexy) dress, the black paint lining her eyes drawing attention to their lustre and to the power contained within them… Ok, yes, perhaps it would be easy to put him out of commission given the right weapon. Or _weapons_ as the case might be, he thought, staring at Geralt’s extremely shapely arse as the Witcher pushed in front of them to talk to Jagoda directly.

“Shut your mouth, bard, you’re drooling,” Yennefer muttered to him, voice not quite low enough to escape Milosz’s notice if the way that the other man’s ears had turned bright red. Geralt, a few paces ahead and talking with Jagoda in a low voice, had definitely also heard her, and shifted just so, so that his calf muscles rippled and strained against his tight trousers. The bastard.

“As if you’re not,” Jaskier whispered back. Her aloof exterior might have fooled even him a few years ago, but now he knew _exactly_ what she liked. And he knew that Geralt’s little display had left them _both_ compromised. Yennefer smirked- a thoroughly _Yennefer_ expression, all smooth condescension undercut with a sincere passion. The certain knowledge that she could have every nerve of their body _singing_ and that they would both thank her for it.

Jaskier swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. He wasn’t a young man by any means, ready to fall in love (and into other things) at the drop of a hat, but when Yennefer _looked_ at him like that, it did terrible things for his self-control. Unconsciously, he flicked his tongue out to moisten his lips, feeling a flare of satisfaction as Yennefer’s gaze was drawn by the movement.

Of course, the heady, intoxicating feeling of lust wasn’t helped by the fact that these two _gorgeous_ people who were perfectly capable of snapping him in half like a twig had chosen _him_.

“Behave, you two,” Geralt said, voice low and rough and doing absolutely nothing for Jaskier’s self-control. With an effort that no doubt went entirely unappreciated, he straightened and attempted to pay attention. 

“Jagoda has agreed to visit her granddaughter for a week-”

“-she’s hasn’t sent me _one_ letter since leaving to get married; the lack of respect these days is astounding-”

“-and has graciously allowed us use of her house in her absence so long as we replace all the food we consume, cause no harm to her house and garden, and complete a few minor tasks.” Geralt continued talking, ignoring Jagoda’s grumbled complaints.

“…what sort of tasks?” Jaskier asked.

“Repaint the outside of the house,” Jagoda said, staring at them each in turn with a look that conveyed a deep-seated doubt that they were capable of any of the chores that she was asking for. “Water my garden, replenish the firewood, and feed my geese.”

“ _Geese?_ ” Jaskier squawked, leaping behind Yennefer without shame and furiously looking around in case any of the hell-animals decided to materialise. “You own _geese_? My dear woman, why would you subject yourself to such indignities?” 

“Not a fan of livestock, master bard?” Jagoda, Jaskier decided, was _definitely_ one of those people who had reached the point in their lives where they had lost any fucks that they might have previously possessed, and instead spent their days whiling away the time by making those around them as uncomfortable as possible. Luckily, having both studied and taught at Oxenfurt where those types of individuals were both endemic and impossible to be rid of, Jaskier was well prepared.

“Not at all, my good lady!” he exclaimed, striding forward and pressing a kiss to the back of Jagoda’s hand, staring up and her through his eyelashes and giving her his most coquettish look. “Your choice in, er, livestock only highlights your strength of character, your stubbornness and honesty-”

Jagoda snorted in his face. “Pretty words,” she said. “But pretty words don’t keep food on the table.”

“Jagoda!” Milosz spluttered, “Master Jaskier is our honoured guest-”

“Master Jaskier is _your_ honoured guest, who you’ve decided to drop on me without warning. I don’t care who your father is, Milosz, this is too far!”

Milosz’s spluttered apologies, explanations, and implorations faded into the background as Geralt tugged Jaskier back so that the three of them could confer.

“Geese?” Jaskier immediately whined. “Why did it have to be geese! A more ornery species of animal I have never met in my life!”

“Been chased by more than a few geese in your time, hmm Jaskier?” Yennefer was most definitely laughing at him.

“Yes!” Jaskier said, answering the entirely rhetorical question. “Yes, in fact I have! I still mourn the doublet and trousers that I sacrificed to the pack of geese that that paranoid innkeeper in Kovir kept- never mind the holes that their beaks left, I could never get the smell of goose shit out of the fabric.”

“Hmm,” Geralt said.

“Don’t you ‘hmm’ me!” Jaskier retorted. “And don’t think that I don’t recall how amused you were at my misfortune! Just because I don’t have Witcher senses doesn’t mean I can’t hear you gossiping with Roach…”

“As much as I appreciate your comedic routine,” Yennefer said, pretending that she was above it all and as though she didn’t spend hours getting wine drunk with Jaskier and bitching about various courtiers, “perhaps we should do it elsewhere. Alderman!” she called out, interrupting the tirade of abuse that Jagoda was heaping upon the man, “My companions and I are going to investigate the village.”

There was a moment of silence as Milosz looked at her in silent confusion, face still flushed from his thorough dressing down.

“Perhaps you could provide us a token,” Jaskier said, breaking the awkward tension. Awkward on the Alderman’s part, in any case, as Yennefer and Jagoda appeared to be enjoying his panic. “Something that would let the townsfolk know that any questions we ask are by your invitation.”

At this, Milosz startled. “Oh, yes!” He said, immediately twisting one of his many rings off his finger. Jaskier’s eyes were caught by the motion, drawn to the sparkle of precious gems. Geralt had compared him to a magpie on occasion, and truly there was not much that Jaskier could do to refute it- he had a love of bright, shiny things.

The Alderman had a half dozen rings or so- not unusual for a nobleman or a rich merchant’s son, but somewhat less commonplace on the fingers of a small village official. On one of them, Jaskier recognised the seal of one of the cadet branches of a prominent noble family. Which was also not something one usually saw in a small village in the middle of nowhere. Jaskier didn’t draw attention to it, merely accepted the proffered ring with a smile and a word of thanks.

“I’ll be gone within the hour,” Jagoda said, once it became apparent that there would be no more drama, “and if you’re not back by then, I’ll leave the key in the lock. No one would dare break into _my_ house, and if they do I expect that you’ll be capable of fixing the damage.”

Jaskier opened his mouth to protest that they weren’t her damned servants and that they didn’t want to stay in her shithole of a house in any case. Thought better of it, not having the time or inclination to argue with an old woman, and especially not when it was very likely what she wanted. Closed it and bowed to Jagoda, imbuing the acting with as much courtly grace as possible.

“Thank you, my lady,” he said. “And safe travels to you.”

And then he turned on his heel and left.

#

Three frustrating hours later, the three of them reconvened at one of the seven public drinking houses in the village- a somewhat remarkable number considering that the population of the village was no more than a few hundred people.

Of these, the _Proud Cockerel_ was the cleanest of the seven, though the quality of the drinks left something to be desired. There were, however, only a couple of regulars seated inside and all of them on the wrong side of inebriated, meaning that the three of them could converse freely about what they had found without worrying about provoking a panic and getting run out of town as harbingers of doom. That, unfortunately, happened relatively regularly.

Geralt had spent the time combing the woods around the village, in search of any tracks or traces that could indicate that there was some creature hiding in the woods. None of them had any idea what sort of creature could have been responsible for such a death; Jaskier thought that Geralt had merely leapt at the chance to spend some time alone and not have to deal with human bullshit, as he put it.

“I found nothing,” Geralt said, staring down at his cup of weak ale, “no signs that there had been any travellers on the road, no indication that there are any shifters who have made their home in the woods.”

“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” Jaskier asked.

Geralt grunted, swirling his drink before knocking it back with a pained grimace. “Perhaps,” he said. “But where did the body come from? The Alderman said that there have been no disappearances-”

“-and he’s right,” Jaskier agreed. “I’ve been all around the village, into every tavern and bakery and butchers, and nobody I talked to knew anything about any disappearances. Barring a village-wide conspiracy, there’s no one that our mystery body can be.”

It had been hours of flattery and gossip and obnoxious questioning, and the most useful thing that he had got out of it was a loaf of fresh bread from the baker, two bottles of mediocre red wine, and an overpriced roast chicken from a stern-faced young woman.

“I wouldn’t be so quick to discount your village-wide conspiracy,” Yennefer said. She, upon discovering the quality of the wine available, had foregone her preferred drink and was instead taking grim sips of vodka. Jaskier stole the half-full demijohn from her and poured himself a healthy measure of liquor. Yennefer glared at him without conviction, softening when he topped up her own drink as well.

“There’s a web of magic over this village,” Yennefer said, not bothering to lower her voice.

Jaskier choked on his vodka, the liquid leaving burning trails of pain down his trachea and down to his lungs.

“I’m sorry, _what_?” he spluttered when he could talk again. “Magic? More magic? Like that magic that you and Geralt found on the body? Because personally I have seen enough of that shit for the rest of my life-”

Talking of Geralt, the Witcher hadn’t expressed any sort of shock or surprise at Yennefer’s pronouncement. Jaskier narrowed his eyes and rounded on him. “And you! Did you know about this?”

Geralt shrugged and took another swig of his drink. Jaskier practically hummed with impatience as he took his time swallowing and wiping his mouth clean of foam.

“I figured that it was something like that,” he finally said. “My medallion hasn’t stopped vibrating since we got here. And there’s a strange smell in the air; it could be magic. The woods… when I said that I found nothing, I meant that literally. No tracks, no indication that anyone has ever travelled to this village.”

“…that is suspicious,” Jaskier said slowly. “If nothing else, Jagoda’s granddaughter left recently, didn’t she? And this is a small village; there must be traders coming back and forth from larger towns, people leaving to seek their fame and fortune…”

“There was no trace of that,” Geralt said. “No tracks on the road. No signs of anyone entering or exiting the town for at least a month.”

Yennefer frowned and leant forward. “Does that include horse tracks?” she asked.

“No,” Geralt said.

Jaskier was struck by a sudden chill, striking between his shoulder blades like a minor chord. Because… the messenger. Who had banged on their door only a few hours ago, who had brought them to the village in the first place. Who had ridden his beautiful chestnut bay back to tell the Alderman that they had accepted his contract and would join him in an hour by portal. Where were his tracks?

All three of them exchanged a significant look.

“Perhaps,” Yennefer said delicately, “we should see whether Jagoda has already departed.”

#

Jagoda had indeed already departed. Her house stood quiet and empty; thankfully, Jaskier noted, with no sign of geese. He walked up the path with Yennefer, Geralt trailing behind them. Jaskier knew that he was checking for threats, and while he would normally tease the Witcher about his paranoid nature today he was glad for it.

The lock was stiff with rust, and the door creaked and groaned as Jaskier swung it open; another task that they would be expected to complete, no doubt, oiling the damn door. The house itself was small, composed of only one room that served as kitchen, dining area, bathroom, and bedroom all. There was only one bed piled high with woollen blankets in bright colours, and it was barely big enough for one person. To Jagoda’s credit, though, the house was scrupulously clean.

It was a far cry from their home with the large and decadent bed and even more luxurious bath; the kitchen that was stocked full of treats and sweet things by little Weronika who came out to cook for them whenever they were in residence; the library and the music room and the laboratory, all close enough that Yennefer could easily brush against their minds as she was wont to do after Sodden, to wordlessly check that they were safe and content.

“How rustic,” Yennefer said, stepping the room and taking it in with a neutral expression. She looked very out of place. It wasn’t just her clothes and jewellery, though they did probably cost more than the house and its entire contents at least five times over. It was her air of power, of _Destiny._ Of being meant for more than this little hovel, no matter how well-loved it was. 

Her eyes went blank for a moment as she gazed around the room, stepping around Geralt to the door and the windows and tracing arcane symbols into the frames. The symbols flared bright purple and then faded, leaving charred shadows in their wake.

“Are we actually going to be repairing this woman’s house?” Jaskier asked. “Because I have to admit that I was sceptical at first, but honestly this place is so small that it’d probably take less than a day. And Jagoda’ll probably be a bit annoyed about the sigils, extra protection or not, if we don’t paint over them before we go. Though, I’m certainly not planning on returning here once this whole affair is over, so honestly we could just leave the Alderman to sort it out once we’re gone.”

Jaskier walked further in as he spoke, dumping the food on the table and trailing a hand against the walls and the numerous dyed strips of fabric decorating it, occasionally pulling back a drape to peer behind it and check for secret compartments.

“Have you ever painted a house in your life, Jaskier?” Yennefer spoke absently as she continued to work, the air thick with magic. 

“Well- no. Not as such. But how hard can it be, really? People do it every day, and I’m sure that with a little magical assistance, we’ll be done in no time!” his mouth babbled on without requiring input from his brain, filling the air with words and giving him to chance to watch Geralt. Who stepped into the house with figurative storm clouds around his head.

Something was bothering him. Jaskier hadn’t seen that grumpy face for _years_. He might go so far as to say that the last time he saw that exact blend of constipation, rage, guilt, and harrowed introspection was that day on King Niedir’s mountain. 

Well, the three of them had come far from that day. And he, for one, wasn’t going to let Geralt backslide. The three of them had worked too hard on their relationship for it to regress.

“It’s a dry place to sleep,” Geralt grunted. “Warm. Protection against the elements.” He stepped in, glancing around the house and flared his nostrils, frowning. His glower became a shade darker. 

“Wait, no, what was that?” Jaskier demanded.

“What?” Geralt’s voice was flat as he shrugged off his swords from his back and carefully leant them against the wall, next to the bed.

“That, that nose flare that you did! The whole ‘there’s something wrong, but I won’t bother anyone’, probably because it’s something that’s not immediately life-threatening and you’re determined to suffer in silence.”

Geralt snorted at him. “You’re exaggerating,” he said, “and you know that if I sensed something, I would tell you.”

Jaskier sighed. “You would,” he said, “if it was a monster about to eat our guts, or if you heard a mob of angry villagers about to drive us out of town, or if the mushroom that I was about to eat was more the poisonous kind and less the fun one. But if it’s just you? You’d rather sit there and brood and not say a word.” Jaskier softened his voice; they had had this argument a hundred times before and they would probably have it a hundred times more if he and Yennefer couldn’t get Geralt to understand that they _cared._

Something of that sentiment must have shown on his face, because Geralt ducked his head and muttered, “Jagoda. She’s a dyer by trade. Uses cow urine to set her dyes.”

_Oh._ Sniffing, Jaskier could smell the faintest whiff of ammonia, and if he, with his puny and unenhanced human senses, could pick that out, then it must be hell for Geralt.

“Here,” Jaskier said, digging through his small travel bag for his store of scented oils. He found a bottle of chamomile oil and carefully deposited a few drops onto one of his embroidered handkerchiefs and thrust it at Geralt. Then he trotted around the room and carefully sprinkled little droplets of oil at regular intervals, making sure to avoid any of the burnt-on sigils. Yennefer would definitely not appreciate having to redo them. 

“It isn’t a perfect solution,” Jaskier said once his bottle was half empty and he could _just_ smell the chamomile in the air, “but I figure that if there’s one smell that you have to concentrate on, chamomile is a lot nicer than urine, right? Plus, you know, I’m pretty sure that you like the smell of chamomile considering…” He trailed off suggestively, wriggling his eyebrows at Geralt.

“You’d better not have used all the oil, Jaskier,” Yennefer said, dropping heavily to the bed, her work done. She frowned slightly and then waved an elegant hand. Nothing tangibly changed, but the sorceress relaxed, lounging back against the cushions.

“No,” Geralt grumbled, there was a lightness in his eyes. “We are not having sex in this woman’s house.”

“Oh come on Geralt, I doubt that she’ll mind! In fact, I’m sure she won’t; I know her type! She’ll probably lie awake once she gets back, fantasising about the three of us…”

“I never knew how truly depraved you were, Jaskier,” Yennefer said.

“As if you’re not,” Jaskier retorted, falling onto the bed next to her and luxuriating in the feel of silk sheets that certainly hadn’t been there a few seconds ago.

“I never said I didn’t like that side of you,” Yennefer purred, and the two of them exchanged an intense gaze for one, brief, charged moment. And then burst out laughing.

Geralt, well used to their antics, rolled his eyes, looking impossibly fond. He wandered over to the windowsill and traced the air above one sigil.

“The wards are well done,” he said. “Protection. Privacy. Silence.”

Yennefer rolled her eyes. “ _Thank you_ for that ringing endorsement,” she said, “but we have more important things to talk about protective wards that I learnt decades ago.”

“Yes,” Geralt said. “I suppose we do.”

#

All three of them fit on the bed. _Just._ And only once Geralt had stripped his armour and Jaskier his doublet, leaving them both in nothing more than shirtsleeves. Yennefer had also removed her dress and was clad only in her silk shift.

The three of them sat on the bed and devoured the chicken- stringy but edible- and the bread, passing around the wine and swigging directly from the bottle. By unspoken consent, he and Yennefer had placed Geralt in the middle. Although he would never admit it, Geralt thrived on skin contact and Jaskier and Yennefer were happy to nestle him between the two of them on a small bed, thigh to thigh and jostling elbows with every move. 

A strange sense of nostalgia rose in Jaskier, memories of his days at Temple School, sneaking bottles of vodka past the Sisters and trying desperately to hide their hangovers the next day. Not successfully, as the numerous pale scars on the palms of his hand proved.

Actually, screw that. Temple School had been _terrible_ , no matter how his mind tried to paper over the painful memories and gild them with the pale sheen of nostalgia. What he had now was so much better.

Geralt had kissed every single one of those scars and called them beautiful. Yennefer had sworn to destroy the school, either literally or socially. Jaskier was well aware that his own traumatic childhood was nothing compared to either of his lovers. But they had never made light of it. And now it was his turn to help.

“Talk to me, Geralt,” Jaskier said once the chicken was nothing more than bones and they were wiping their greasy hands on an old rag they had found in the corner (that personally Jaskier was hoping hadn’t been used for any dyeing activities). “What’s going on?”

Geralt slowly set down the wine bottle- already mostly empty and Jaskier had a brief pang of regret that he hadn’t bought more than two- and stilled, staring down at the bed. His shoulders were hunched, and he reminded Jaskier of nothing more than a feral cat- ready to bolt at any moment.

“Nothing,” the Witcher said, predictably enough.

Jaskier sighed and pinched his nose. This was going to take time and delicacy and more alcohol than they had.

“Cut the macho bullshit, Geralt,” Yennefer said, not unkindly, before Jaskier could say anything. “We know you well enough by now to tell when there’s something wrong.”

Or just Yennefer’s brand of concern. Straight to the point. To be fair, it was unlikely that the carefully crafted words that Jaskier had been in the process of preparing would have penetrated Geralt’s protective shield.

“There’s nothing to tell!” Geralt snapped. “Nothing at all.”

He finally looked up at them, a wildness to his eyes. “I’m fine,” he said. “I’m always fine. There’s nothing to worry about.”

Jaskier wanted to cry. To hunt down anyone who had wronged Geralt in the in the past and- and- and write an irritatingly catchy song about what _bastards_ they were. To go and find the people who had systematically destroyed Geralt’s self-worth until the only thing that he believed he was good for was self-sacrifice and fighting monsters.

“But you don’t have to be ‘fine’!” Jaskier said, only barely restraining himself from adding air quotes. “You don’t. Sometimes it’s actually healthy to not be ‘fine’ all the time! Sometimes you’re just allowed to just let other people help you.”

“Witcher’s don’t have emoti-”

“Anyone who’s ever met you know that’s a lie,” Jaskier said. “Do you think that Yennefer and I are complete idiots? Masochistic morons who would just as happily love a rock or a statue if it had a nice arse?”

Jaskier took a deep breath, viciously squashing the urge to get up and pace. Calm. Collected. Make sure that Geralt knew that they were here for him. Stop him from running off in an emotion-fuelled panic. He and Yennefer would track him down, of course, but that was time and effort when they could be doing something more pleasant instead.

“I know that you don’t believe that crap about Witchers not having emotions,” Jaskier said, keeping his voice as steady as possible. “So please. Tell us what’s wrong. Let us _help._ ” He placed his hand on Geralt’s shoulder and waited. On his other side, Yennefer sat still and silent, pressing her leg against Geralt’s in a wordless show of support.

Geralt was a tactile person, a person who put far more stock in actions than words- Jaskier knew that. Had learnt that over years of companionship. He didn’t need pretty words spilling out into the aether to reassure him that he was loved, would not believe them in any case, as Jaskier had learnt to chagrin. What he needed was a quiet show of support. Proof that he would not be abandoned. Proof that Jaskier was happy to supply every single day that he stayed with Geralt. Stayed with Geralt and Yennefer both.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” Geralt said eventually, once the awkward silence had smoothed out and become instead familiar and comforting. “It’s- it’s stupid. When I saw that corpse this morning, dead and twisted and in pain… when I saw it monstrous and mutated, neither man nor beast, all I could think was that I was like that corpse. The difference between us was as thin as a knife; the only true difference is that I’m still living. And the corpse is not.”

Jaskier bit back his first reaction, which was to loudly object. And then his second, which was a full minute of increasingly dirty swear words. Instead he took Geralt’s hand and gave it a squeeze, waiting to see whether there was anything else that Geralt wanted to say.

“I know that I’m not-” Geralt continued after a moment. “Similar, that is. Whoever or whatever caused _that_ … As far as I can tell, it wasn’t for any true purpose, it wasn’t like the Trials of the Grasses. It was just some idiot playing with forces beyond their control. Either the victim themself wandered into a magic that they couldn’t hope to understand, or a holier-than-thou mage decided to fuck over some poor bastard.”

“Geralt,” Jaskier said. “No, that’s- It’s understandable. Completely understandable that you’d feel that way- that you still do feel that way. I can’t-” he swallowed, “-I can’t pretend that I know what you went through, but-”

“-but I do,” Yennefer said, interrupting, voice low and intense. “I know what you went through. What you’re going through. The feeling that your body’s not your own. That some bastard has looked at it and declared it not enough, has warped it and changed it to their image. And that, even years later, even when by all rights you should have got used to this changed you, this warped reflection of yourself- even them some days you wake up and you forget. You forget what’s been done to you. Until you don’t.”

Yennefer reached over and took Geralt’s free hand, holding it so tightly that her knuckles began to whiten.

“And worst of all-” her voice descended into a hiss, “-you’re surrounded every day by people who comment on how _lucky_ you are. How _grateful_ you should be.”

She took and deep breath and looked into Geralt’s eyes, unyielding and fierce and _beautiful_ in the way that a storm was, all sound and fury and rage. Geralt was a study in opposites, instead of wearing his rage and anger outwardly, he folded it inward, toward his heart. Surrounded himself with impenetrable barriers, protecting the bright spark of passion and joy with all the fervency of a mother bear to her young cub. Only gradually lowering the barriers, ready to slam them up at the slightest provocation.

“You were a child, Geralt,” Yennefer continued, her voice breaking, “Trained and brainwashed and forcibly transformed. Everything was done _to_ you. You’re not a monster; you’re the farthest thing from a monster. The people who did that to you are the monsters. You, at least, had no choice.”

For one moment, Geralt wore his barriers proudly and openly- and then he dropped them. Jaskier could see the exact moment it happened, could see the softening of his eyes as he gently extricated his hand from Yennefer’s death grip and instead raised it to cup her face.

“Yennefer,” Geralt said, and his voice was so tender that it made Jaskier want to cry. He didn’t say anything else, just leant forward and pressed his head against hers.

“You were a child too, Yennefer,” Jaskier said, slipping from his place on the bed and kneeling before them. “You’d been taken and for years you’d been told that the only way that you could be powerful was to Ascend. What other choice did you have?”

Yennefer didn’t answer, just closed her eyes.

“None,” Geralt rumbled. “You had no choice at all.”

“Or if you did it was a false one,” Jaskier said. “And you Geralt- you didn’t have a choice either. Both of you have been ill-used by the world. By your mentors and elders and people you should have been able to trust. You’re not weak. Neither of you. You’re the strongest people I know and, selfishly, I am thankful that you’re here. Not for the terror and trauma that you underwent, but for the fact that you lived. And that I was able to meet you. I don’t know where I would be without either of you. Probably in a shallow grave somewhere, killed by one of my paramours. Or miserable and in Oxenfurt- a slow death of the spirit.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt said. “I-” he trailed off, scowling as he searched for words that wouldn’t come.

“Come here,” Yennefer said, pulling him up off the floor and back onto the bed with them.

And somehow, the three of them- half-squashed, half-lying on each other in the ludicrously small bed- managed to fall asleep.

#

Warmth, was the first thing that Jaskier felt when he woke the next morning. Warmth and pressure on all sides, Yennefer’s surprisingly pointy elbows digging into his sides and Geralt’s hair tickling his nose.

Jaskier opened his eyes, blinking to rid them of the sleep that had accumulated during the night, and carefully extricated himself from the bed without waking anyone else. It took him a good ten minutes to do so, not helped by the fact he frequently paused to study his lovers’ faces. He _never_ woke first; it had become somewhat of an inside joke that there were three early risers in their house, and that one of them was Roach. It really wasn’t his fault that some of his most inspiring lyrics came to him in the small hours of the morning, or that he was the only one of the three of them who couldn’t subsist on only five hours of sleep.

He was fairly certain that that particular ability wasn’t even an innate part of being a Witcher or a sorceress, just something that both Yennefer and Geralt had learnt- through preference or circumstance- to do over the years.

Jaskier shivered in the cool morning air, quickly shimmying on his trousers and doublet. He felt sore and stiff and tired; his knees ached a little in the cold and he scowled, recognising the signs of getting older. At almost fifty he was comfortably into middle age, something that his younger self would have been horrified by. As a young man he had thought that he would die in a blaze of glory before he could get old; once he had started travelling with Geralt it had become almost certain that he would meet a grisly end at the claws of some monster.

But he was still alive. And more than that, he was _happy._ He no longer felt that all-encompassing drive to travel, to create, to imprint his mark so deeply into the world that scholars thousands of years into the future would still be studying his work, that villages all over the Continent would be singing his songs to their children and their children’s children. He had achieved at least some of the fame that he had dreamt of, and perhaps that was partly why he felt more settled, but he suspected that the main reasons were lying in front of him, curled around each other and still deeply slumbering.

Opening the door, he peeked outside. It was still dark, but there was a lightness to the East; sunrise couldn’t be more than an hour off. There were a few geese milling around the front of the house- Jaskier instinctively shuddered- but he was certain that he could sidle past them easily enough.

Perfect.

He grabbed his coin purse and the leftover bread from the floor and briefly mourned the fact that he hadn’t brought his lute. He had thought that they’d have completed the contract and returned home in a day at most, or at least would have returned home to sleep, and that therefore he didn’t need to bring it with him. More fool him; his fingers itched with the urge to play the day in. Perhaps there was more to this whole ‘waking up early’ thing. Never mind. He would know better in future. And surely this contract couldn’t take much longer?

Lute or no lute, nothing stopped him from humming lightly under his breath as he exited Jagoda’s house hurling the bread as far away from him as possible to distract the geese. He would go to the bakery and get some pastries for breakfast; something sweet and sugary and altogether decadent, the sort of thing that Geralt claimed not to like but would carefully consume over the course of an hour, taking only the smallest of bites and snarling at Jaskier if he tried to steal the treat from his plate. Yennefer accepted all pastries as her due, but her eyes would always flutter shut when she took the first bite, savouring the taste.

Jaskier both thought it was adorable and had vowed never to tell her that she did it for fear that she’d stop.

So yes, pastries. Honeycakes for Geralt, something with jam or fruit for Yennefer, and something stuffed with cream for him. He grinned to himself, already anticipating the groans to come as he carefully licked the filling from his fingers. Perhaps they could indulge in something more fun this morning, something that reminded them they were here and alive and together.

This was a brilliant idea.

“Master Jaskier! Master Jaskier, wait!” A voice that Jaskier recognised as Milosz’s called out from behind him, and Jaskier cursed himself for a fool. And then cursed Destiny for being a fickle bitch who couldn’t give them a break. Then he spun around on his heel, plastering a pleasant look onto his face.

“Alderman!” he called out, waiting in place for the extremely red-faced Milosz, panting and heaving as he ran the last few metres to Jaskier. “What can I do for you, this early in the morning?”

The extra emphasis that Jaskier placed on the word ‘early’ went straight over the other man’s head, and he sighed.

“There’s another body,” Milosz gasped out, “another body in the woods.”

All thoughts pastries and lazy mornings fled Jaskier’s head.

“Well fuck.”

#

“There’s something familiar about it,” Geralt said, staring down at the body.

Jaskier snorted from where he was draped over a convenient trunk, hand over his eyes so he didn’t have to look at the scene. “Of course it’s familiar,” he said, “it’s exactly what happened yesterday. Up to and including our dear Alderman being the bearer of bad news.”

“No, there’s something more,” Geralt said. “Yennefer, come and look at this. What do you think?”

There was more shuffling and then a snap rang through the air and power pulsed briefly. Jaskier could well imagine what was happening; that same dark miasma of magic becoming visible.

There was a whimper and what might have been the sound of retching, and Jaskier winced in sympathy. Milosz was, no doubt, finding that his stomach was not up to the task. It was unsurprising; the number of even veteran Aldermen, Mayors, or Lords who had thrown up when Geralt presented them with the head of his contracted kills… Well, there was a reason that Jaskier tended to stay well out of vomiting distance.

“Let me guess,” Jaskier said, raising his voice to be heard over Milosz. “Exactly the same as yesterday?”

“Yes,” Geralt replied.

There was the sound of more rustling, and then a truly disturbing _crack._ Jaskier shuddered. “Please tell me that you’re not actually touching the body,” he said faintly. “That’s just- no. That’s wrong.”

Morbid curiosity and a healthy lack of self-preservation instincts led him to open his eyes and swing himself off the trunk and carefully pick his way over to where Geralt and Yennefer were standing.

“Right,” he said, “I’m coming over. Yennefer could you dispel your magic? I’d rather not join our esteemed Alderman in the bushes, if I can help it. Knowing my luck, there’ll be a hirikka or something horrifying in there and I don’t have enough time for that, I really don’t.”

“You and your weak stomach,” Yennefer said, rolling her eyes. She gave a dramatic wave- one that Jaskier is almost certain that was entirely superfluous, but who was he too disapprove of showmanship?- and the magic vanished. Thank Melitele.

“Oh,” he said looking down at the newly revealed corpse, “yeah, no, that’s really not good.”

The corpse in front of him shared similarities with its antecedent in that it was a twisted mixture of human and animal, its mouth open in a silent scream of pain and anguish. Unlike the previous day’s corpse, the animal that it had been fused with didn’t appear to be mammalian; instead there were shimmering brown scales visible in inflamed patches. A long tail elongated what was already an unnaturally tall and skinny body, painfully stretched and making Jaskier think of the sugary confections that wealthy lords liked to showcase at their banquets. Swallowing briefly to settle his stomach, Jaskier knelt down and looked closer; from this angle he could see that the corpse’s teeth were needle-like, sharp and dangerous and more at home in a viper’s mouth than that of a human’s.

“They wouldn’t have been able to close their mouth,” Geralt said quietly. “The teeth would have torn through their lips.”

Jaskier shuddered. “So whoever did that to them didn’t care about whether or not they could survive afterward,” he said. “They just cared about-” he made a helpless hand gesture, “-I don’t even know what they cared about. Geralt? Yennefer? Why the fuck would anyone want to do something like this?”

Yennefer’s lip curled. “I know several mages who would do something like this, if they thought they could get away with it,” she said. “All in the name of ‘academic curiosity’.”

“Just when I thought that I couldn’t be any more disappointed by humanity, something like this happens,” Jaskier said. The corpse _did_ look familiar, as Geralt had said; there was something about it. Something itching at the back of his brain.

“It there any chance that it’s the fair folk who are responsible?” he asked, eyes still scanning the body in pursuit of the familiarity. “I mean, the number of ballads and folk tales that I’ve heard where they hunt people down to transform them into animals- add the magic to that, and it makes sense, doesn’t it? The Fae are meant to be cruel and capricious, after all. Maybe some country yokel decided to trade with the Fae, went the whole ‘human sacrifice for a better harvest’ route, and this is the result.”

“I’ve heard those ballads,” Geralt grunted. “They’re filled with inaccuracies and exaggerations. And a good half of it is Fae propaganda. I doubt they’d be able to grow a toadstool circle nowadays; they never have recovered from the commercialisation of iron.”

“Some of them are true, though, aren’t they?” Jaskier asked. “Tam Lin for one! I loved that song as a child; I’d force my cousin to act it out with me. I can tell you that my parents weren’t pleased when we both came to dinner covered in bee stings because we’d tried to hug a beehive.”

“It’s nice to see that nothing has changed over the years,” Geralt said, barely hiding his smile.

“Oi!” Jaskier protested. “I resent that, that _slander_.”

“Anyone who’s ever met you would agree with Geralt in an instance,” Yennefer said, “but setting aside your childhood misadventures, that’s an interesting theory. Not as asinine as one might imagine.”

“Oh thanks,” Jaskier grumbled.

“There’s just a few problems with it,” Yennefer continued, flashing him an amused smirk. “The first is that fact that it’s the middle of winter. You’d think that the would-be dealmakers would choose a better time to make a deal for a better harvest.”

“People are idiots,” Jaskier protested. “Plus I never said it was _definitely_ for a better harvest; it could be for anything! A child. A good pair of boots. Er, a filling meal.”

Yennefer raised a judgemental brow.

“I never said that I’d sacrifice someone for a meal!” Jaskier protested, raising his hands in faux surrender. “Though,” he mused, “if it were a good meal and if the sacrifice were Valdo Marx, I could be talked into it…”

“The other problem,” Yennefer said, “is that the magic that I detected on the bodies is human. Not Fae.”

Jaskier deflated. “Well crap,” he said. “You couldn’t have led with that?”

“You looked like you were having fun,” Yennefer replied. “It seemed a pity to interrupt you.”

“Ha bloody ha,” Jaskier said. “So this is definitely the work of a human sorcerer of some kind? It’s not just some freak accident?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Geralt said, coming to stand next to Jaskier. The tightness around his eyes had returned and Jaskier quietly offered the Witcher his hand, smiling to himself as he took it. Hand. Hands.

“Oh _fuck_ ,” Jaskier said, quietly and with feeling. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, _fuck._ ”

He knelt down once again and, with a wince, gently unfurled one of the corpse’s hands, wincing as he spotted the bloody crescents on its palm from where its fingernails had dug deeply into flesh. Its skin was dry and unpleasant, and he resolutely didn’t think about what he was touching.

“Jaskier?” Geralt asked. “What is it?”

“I know who the corpse is,” Jaskier said, his mouth dry as he stared at the fingers. Elegant, despite the scales spotting them. Lutenist’s fingers.

Fingers that he had last seen brandishing a broom at the helpless Alderman.

_Jagoda._

Jaskier stared at the corpse, the new knowledge settling into his head and allowing him to better see the contours of her body. What was left of her body. And then he lurched to the side and was quietly, miserably sick.

#

Jaskier was still shaking slightly by the time they were all settled in Milosz’s office, Geralt looming protectively behind him and Yennefer glaring at the Alderman. Who didn’t look that good himself; his face was pale and strained and he was convulsively wiping his mouth with the palm of his hand.

“I don’t, I didn’t, how,” Milosz was stuttering, looking to be on the verge of collapse. He had Geralt’s heavy woollen spare cloak wrapped around him, practically drowning him in its voluminous folds. “That can’t be Jagoda, surely. Can it? I saw her yesterday! I gave her money for a carriage to Tretogor- How can that be her?”

Jaskier stood up abruptly, unable to stay in place for one moment longer. He paced restlessly running his hand through his hair until it resembled little more than a bird’s nest. He was a bundle of nervous energy; he wanted to run, to hide, to pick at his lute until the strings broke- but there was nothing that he could do. Just pace in this too-small room.

“Jaskier,” Geralt said, catching him by the arm. “Sit. Please.”

Jaskier wanted to protest, but Melitele help him, just the touch of Geralt’s hand on his arm was helping to ground him. To calm him. There was a faint brush against his mind- nothing more than a brief touch- and Jaskier calmed further, taking measured breaths. Yennefer wasn’t looking at him- too busy pouring Milosz a glass of strong potato vodka- but he could feel her hum of acknowledgement as he loudly projected his thanks.

“Thank the gods,” he said out loud, collapsing back into his chair, “there’s alcohol. Here, give me some of that.”

So saying, he poured himself a large measure of the spirit and knocked it back, pleasantly surprised at the burn. Strong, no doubt, but of a fine quality; he had probably just drunk at least a crown’s worth of vodka. He poured himself another glass. His liver had dealt with worse.

“Go easy on that,” Yennefer said, stealing the glass from him and handing it to Geralt, who drank it with the air of a man who knew that metabolism was capable of dealing with far worse toxins than alcohol. “We need you cogent. That is to say as cogent as you get.”

“You know, one would think that you’d be kinder to the man who managed to work out a key piece of information about our mysterious corpses,” Jaskier said conversationally. “Instead of insulting him and stealing his drink.”

“But you’re just so easy to insult,” Yennefer purred.

“Should we be flirting right now?” Jaskier asked faintly, tugging at the collar of his doublet. “I mean, I’m not complaining, but it does feel a bit gauche, what with the whole ‘searching for a magical arsehole who’s already killed two people that we know of, including our reluctant landlady’ situation that we’ve found ourselves in.”

They both glanced over at Milosz, who was gripping his glass so tightly that Jaskier swore he could hear it creak from the stress.

“He’s like a puppy,” Jaskier said, lowering his voice so that only Geralt and Yennefer could hear him. “A small, innocent puppy. Who’s just been kicked. And possibly almost eaten by a wolf, or something. I just want to pat him on the head and tuck him into bed, which is- frankly- pretty disturbing considering I wasn’t previously aware that I possessed any maternal instincts.”

“Save your pity, Jaskier,” Geralt said, his eyebrows brooding up a storm, “until we know that he isn’t responsible for the death and mutilation of two innocent people.”

“Do you really think that he could do that?” Jaskier asked. “I mean, he looks like he’s about to go into shock. I’m not saying that he isn’t capable of killing someone, but it’d be more the distant killing through exploitation type murder, surely? I can’t see him actually kidnapping and experimenting on people. Not unless he has some _very_ competent henchmen.”

“I don’t trust anyone,” Geralt said, and he had his scary face on. The one that Jaskier stopped being intimidated by approximately five seconds after meeting him for the first time.

“Sure you don’t,” he replied, pointedly Not Looking at the hand that Geralt still hadn’t removed from his arm. “You’re a big, scary Witcher. The fact that you gave Milosz your cloak- practically a love declaration from you!- means nothing at all. My mistake.”

Geralt snorted at him and after checking to make sure that Milosz was still not paying attention- he wasn’t, he was currently rocking in place as Yennefer gingerly patted him on the shoulder, only restraining her eye roll through sheer force of will- leant forward and kissed Jaskier’s forehead.

“Extremely fierce,” he murmured into the bard’s ear, before straightening and assuming his professional mask.

“Alderman,” he said, not loudly but firmly. “You were the last person to see Jagoda. Did you notice anything strange? Out of the ordinary?”

Milosz looked up, taking his eyes off Yennefer who promptly locked eyes with Jaskier and gave him one of the most long-suffering expressions that he had seen in a while. In fact, the last time he remembered her using this particular expression was when the water charms on their house had failed, leading to a completely flooded bathroom and two weeks of pumping their own water like peasants and getting Geralt to _Igni_ it hot.

“No,” Milosz said. To his credit, there was only a faint tremble in his voice. “Madame Jagoda was normal. She wasn’t- I mean, I don’t know her that well, but she seemed normal enough? She lectured me the entire time I was with her, made me help her pack her clothes and her work- Not that I minded!”

“Get to the point,” Yennefer said. “What about when you were seeing her off. Was there anything wrong?”

Milosz hesitated.

“Anything at all,” Jaskier added. “Any strange event or detail; something that you saw out of the corner of your eye, perhaps; something that you dismissed as a trick of the light. A momentary smell. A sense of danger. _Anything._ Anything at all.”

“There was,” Milosz started hesitantly, “there was something. I- this is stupid. I imagined it-”

“Tell us anyway,” Geralt said.

“…the air,” he said. “It was too still. There wasn’t any- I’m from the city and when I came here, I was surprised at how noisy it was; birdsong and wild pigs, and geese honking in the morning- But yesterday, when I saw Jagoda off, there was nothing.” Milosz huddled down in his cloak, pulling it more tightly around himself. “It was completely silent.”

“Hmm,” Geralt said, a thoughtful sound. Jaskier recognised it as something like approval; the amount of times that they had been fucked over by people who wanted them to kill some unknown monster but hadn’t bother (or thought to) provide all the details, it wasn’t surprising that the Witcher appreciated it.

Milosz, however, was not as used to interpreting Geralt as Jaskier and shrank back into himself with a flinch.

“Uh,” Jaskier said. “That is definitely important information to have. Useful information. Er, well done,” he added awkwardly, as Milosz stared at him with wide eyes, sucking in every word of praise.

Jaskier shot Yennefer a desperate look; though he was normally all in favour of people wholeheartedly appreciating his talents, he would rather it be for his melodic voice and superb lyrics than his half-hearted attempts to comfort someone. He rather suspected that Milosz’s gratitude was less to do with him, Jaskier, as a person, and more to do with the fact that he was offering praise.

It was an uncomfortable feeling, looking at the young man he could have been if he’d had less of a sense of self, and hadn’t managed to get out from his family’s thumb.

“Was I ever this desperate for validation?” he murmured under his breath, so quietly that only Witcher hearing could hope to pick it up. Not quietly enough, evidently.

“You were far worse, bard,” Yennefer breathed into his ear, causing Jaskier to jump as he hadn’t noticed her move. “It’s one of your better qualities.”

Before he could reply (probably for the best, considering the fact that he had been cockblocked by murder not once but _twice_ in the past two days), she straightened and said, more loudly, “Can you think of anyone who could be responsible for this?”

“No,” Milosz said meekly. “I only moved here a month ago; the previous Alderman died- of old age, that is!- and my father- I mean I was sent out to look after the village.” He snorted. “Not that I’ve done a good job,” he muttered. “I haven’t got a lot of experience- before this, I was, am, was a poet- that is, I don’t know how things work around here, exactly, which is why as soon as I heard that the famous Geralt of Rivia and his companions lived a short distance away I sent for you.”

Jaskier felt another, irritating pang of fellow feeling. Yes, he could well imagine his own father sending him out to an isolated village- away from his instrument and his friends and his freedom- in order to ‘help him’ toughen up, or whatever machismo nonsense the man had felt like spouting on any given day. Once this was all over, he might actually have to visit Milosz and give him some advice on being the disappointing black sheep of a noble family.

“Yennefer, don’t,” Jaskier said in a _sotto_ voice as she opened her mouth, “I am fairly certain that if you say so much as one unkind word to him, he’s going to deflate like a stuck pig.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” Yennefer replied. Geralt snorted behind her, leading Jaskier to roll his eyes and put his pointy elbows to good use, namely by jamming them into his lovers’ sides.

“Behave,” he said serenely, trying desperately to hide his laughter at their overdramatic reactions- Geralt was giving him the largest and most disappointed puppy dog eyes while Yennefer looked like an offended cat- then turned to Milosz.

“Is there anything at all you can think of that might help us find who did this?” Jaskier asks, making sure that his voice is soft and reassuring.

Milosz shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’m sorry, I can’t think of anything. But-” he hesitated, hands twisting together as he fiddled with Geralt’s cloak. Jaskier waited impatiently for him to continue. 

“But?” Jaskier prompted.

“But maybe Master Aridean would be able to help,” he said, talking so quickly that his words were barely comprehensible.

“Master Aridean?” Jaskier had to word hard not to show his exasperation on his face. Because this ‘Master Aridean’ sounded like a mage’s name to him; surely Milosz had overheard enough to realise that they were looking for a mage? Why hadn’t he said this before?

“Yes,” Milosz squeaked. He took a took breath to calm himself and straightened. When he next spoke, he almost sounded composed. “Master Aridean is one of father’s friends; he’s an expert in magical lore, though he isn’t a sorcerer himself. He was the one who first told me about Witchers, when I was a boy. I know that he has a home around here in the woods; I haven’t visited it, but it’s near the village. He might have some more information about the corpses- he’s lived here for years. He, er, he enjoys his privacy- please don’t tell him that I was the one who told you about him.”

A scholar and potential magic user who lived in the woods surrounding the village and who had been here for years? Who Milosz hadn’t visited, who, judging by the look on the young man’s face terrified him, despite being an old friend of his father’s? Who ‘valued his privacy’? This Master Aridean was looking more and more suspicious by the minute.

“Yes we’ll just- go and talk to him,” Jaskier said. “And don’t worry about it, Milosz; we won’t tell him that you sent us. In fact, if he’s as reclusive as you say, it’s doubtful that we’ll run into him at all.”

#

There was a tower in the woods. Tall and foreboding, it looked abandoned. It was covered in years’ worth of ivy and other climbing plants, creeping their way up the stone walls, digging into cracks and crevices and causing it to blend better into the trees.

“Is this it?” Jaskier asked. “Because is really doesn’t look like the home of an evil megalomaniac who’s unethically experimenting on old women. And whoever else they kidnapped before we got here.” He paused. “Actually,” he said, “I was, er, thinking. About that first corpse. The one from yesterday. You don’t think…” he swallowed. “You don’t think that the first corpse was Jagoda’s granddaughter, do you? I mean, everyone I talked to said that no one had left the village in months, but the only reason that Milosz thought that Jagoda would take us in is that her daughter had recently left to get married…”

“Perhaps it was,” Geralt said. “And perhaps it was just an unlucky traveller who decided to approach the wrong village. There’s no way of telling.”

“I suppose,” Jaskier said uneasily.

“Quiet, you two,” Yennefer said. “I’m trying to concentrate.”

She had swept a sizable patch of earth clear of leaves and detritus and was in the process of drawing various arcane symbols in the dirt with. She reminded Jaskier of a mechanical wonder that one of his colleagues had shown him; a machine that was capable of perfectly reproducing text hundreds or even dozens of times, using not a clever spell but only human ingenuity. His colleague had been convinced that it would change the world; Jaskier was more dubious. He couldn’t imagine that the Brotherhood of Sorcerers or the cult of the Eternal Flame would approve.

Yennefer’s movements were just as neat and precise and produced perfectly formed symbols, twisting around themselves and each other to such an extent that trying to follow their meandering path made Jaskier’s head spin.

“That’s impressive,” Jaskier said, twisting his head in the hope that it would make it easier to read the symbols- no such luck, it just made his head pound more. “I mean, I pride myself on my neat and legible hand- it has made me a favourite of administrators, students, and paramours alike- but I doubt that I could transcribe anything with that amount of precision. Are you using magic to help?”

“What part of ‘I’m trying to concentrate’ invited more babbling?” Yennefer asked, finishing the final few symbols with a flourish. “And no, the precision isn’t due to any magic; the precision is what gets taught at Aretuza under pain of being turned into an eel.”

“…I’m sorry?” Jaskier said. “If you get this wrong, you might accidentally transform yourself into an eel?”

“No,” Yennefer said. “If I’d got it wrong then I might have been purposely transformed into an eel.” She smiled at him, tight and mirthless. “The Isle of Thanedd is a great source of magical power; where do you think the magic comes from?”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Jaskier said. “That’s- that’s horrific. Horrendous. Harrowing. Other words starting with ‘h’ that convey the same sentiment. Ooh, horrible! I’m only just getting started here, Yennefer, I can keep going for hours. Say the word and I can start composing a ballad right this minute decrying Aretuza- so long as you swear that you and Geralt’ll protect me from the assassins that will no doubt be sent after me once the Brotherhood discovers what I’ve done, because I would not be a good eel. I really wouldn’t. And neither would you! Which is why it’s abhorrent, beastly, er, crapsack? Catty? That doesn’t have quite the same ring to it-”

Yennefer snorted. “Save your words, Jaskier. Aretuza will never change.” The wealth of resignation and bitterness and grief in those words made Jaskier want to punch something. Preferably the entirely Brotherhood, or at least those who were responsible for Yennefer’s bleak despair. 

“Hmm,” he said, noncommittedly, glancing over at Geralt. He received an answering nod; neither of them were going to let this go.

“So!” Jaskier continued, loudly, “is that why you were so evasive when I asked whether this was black magic, yesterday? If there are people being turned into eels regularly, does that mean that it’s a common use of magic? I mean, I joke about you turning me and anyone you interact with for more than five minutes into a snail all the time, but is that an actual possibility?”

“Not common,” Yennefer said. “But not unheard of, either. And no, Jaskier, I wouldn’t turn you into a snail no matter how annoying your pre-dawn concerts are. I couldn’t do that to Geralt- he would sulk awfully.”

“I would,” Geralt agreed. “I have been told that I am master at brooding.”

“Well, we can’t have that,” Jaskier said. “You must be near some sort of critical brooding mass already; far be it for me to be the one to tip the scales!”

The symbols drawn in the dirt chose that moment to flare- interrupting what would have been a masterful inditement of Geralt’s mother hen tendencies- letting out a burst of magic that set Geralt’s medallion humming on his chest.

“…ah,” Jaskier said. “I take it that’s not a good sign?”

“No,” Yennefer said, kneeling to study the pulses of light that her magic was emitting. “It means that the tower is heavily protected by magic. Nasty magic as well- these wards aren’t just powerful, they’re outright sadistic.”

“Not good,” Geralt said, unsheathing his steel sword and settling it comfortably in his hand. “Not someone who’d be willing to have a friendly chat.”

“Not good at all,” Jaskier agreed, bouncing lightly on his feet. “But you can dismantle them, right Yennefer?”

“What do you take me for?” Yennefer asked. “Of course I can. Jaskier, behind me. Geralt, make sure you’re ready to engage if this Master Aridean is at home.”

There was a furrow in her brow as she gently lifted her hands, the light from the symbols shifting and flying to surround the tower until it was illuminated in a patina of light, both Yennefer’s purple and a sickly yellow shot through with red that sprang up too oppose it. 

Jaskier squinted at it over Yennefer’s shoulder. It- reminded him of pus, actually, thick and putrid. Did sorcerers get to choose what colour their magic was? Or was it dependant on what sort of Chaos they were wielding? He really couldn’t imagine anyone _choosing_ pus-coloured magic, so possibly the latter. He would have to ask Yennefer at some point when she wasn’t trying to break through strong- and disgusting looking- wards.

There was a moment of strain before Yennefer _pushed_ and the purple overwhelmed the yellow, the magic rushing in to wash harmlessly over the tower before dissipating.

A pressure that Jaskier hadn’t even noticed disappeared, his ears popping. Somewhere in the distance, a single bird started to sing.

“What was that?” he asked. 

“A side-effect of the wards,” Yennefer said. She was pale and swaying slightly; Jaskier swung his pack off his back and offered her his water skin, which she took with a quiet thanks.

“They were strong enough to silence an entire wood?”

Yennefer shrugged. “Perhaps. But they’re gone now. And I’m looking forward to seeing what Aridean tried so hard to hide.”

Jaskier gulped, looking at the tower. Now that the wards had been taken down, it no longer seemed so harmless, looming out at them like something out of a fairy tale. One of the really gruesome ones that ended with amputation or cannibalism. He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders, remembering Jagoda’s twisted face staring up at him.

“Me too.”

#

Stepping into the tower was like stepping into another realm. There was the scent of oranges in the air, the sound of a gently tinkling fountain mixing with the soft buzzing of cicadas. Bright sunlight illuminated the smooth marble walls and stretching impossibly far out Jaskier could see elegant red pillars.

“Ok, this is definitely not what I was expecting,” Jaskier said, reaching out to touch an orange tree. The leaves were smooth, the fruits dimpled, the flowers fragrant. If it was an illusion, then it was a masterful one.

“Stay close,” Geralt said. “We don’t know if there are traps.” He reached forward and pulled Jaskier back until he was nestled against the Witcher’s side.

“Er, Geralt?” Jaskier started to ask but stopped. Because Geralt was paler than usual, his eyes darting around the tower. His jaw was clenched so tightly that Jaskier’s teeth ached in sympathetic pain and looking down Jaskier could see that the steel sword in his hand was trembling ever so slightly. “What’s the matter?”

“The illusions- they remind me of someone. A mage that I met a long time ago. He was experimenting on young women, ‘mutants’ he called them…” he trailed off. “The similarities could be a coincidence, but I don’t want to risk it.”

Jaskier reached down and took Geralt’s hand.

“We’ll do this quickly,” he said. “In and out, look for evidence. Even a mage has to bow to the laws of the land. And considering that your daughter is the Empress of Nilfgaard, I doubt that we’ll have too much trouble enforcing the law by force if needed.”

“Well that is rude of you, Master Bard,” a cultured voice came from behind, and Jaskier bit back a groan as Geralt’s hand tightened painfully. “Though considering the company you keep, I shouldn’t have expected otherwise.”

“ _Stregobor_ ,” Yennefer hissed, stepping back so that she was shoulder to shoulder with Geralt, Jaskier shoved behind them both. “I should have known that it was you.”

Stregobor? Jaskier had heard the name but had never set eyes on the man; nonetheless he hated him. Geralt had only talked about Blaviken once in all the years that Jaskier had known him, and it had been after drinking enough Dwarven Spirits to down a Selkimore. Safe in the dark and isolation, the only illumination the dying embers of their campfire, Geralt had recounted the story of the Renfri, princess of Creyden, in broken sentences.

That night had been the only time that Geralt had as much as made reference to her. But it had been enough to stoke the burning embers of hate into Jaskier’s heart.

“Ah, Yennefer,” Stregobor said, strolling lightly toward them. He looked like a harmless old man, one of the eccentrics that roamed Oxenfurt’s halls. He made no move to attack, nor to defend himself against the Chaos swirling around Yennefer. “How good it is to see you. I haven’t been able to entertain properly for years; not since that little fracas with Nilfgaard. Unfortunate, but it does make this opportunity so much sweeter.”

“Stop talking,” Geralt growled, moving his sword into a protective stance.

“And stand down!” Jaskier said. “You will answer for your crimes, Stregobor.”

Stregobor blinked at him in bemusement. “And which crimes are those, exactly?” he asked. “Considering that I rushed back here as soon as I felt my wards break, I doubt that you’ve had the chance to actually _find_ anything, illegal or otherwise.”

“So you admit that there is something to find!” Jaskier said, ignoring Geralt’s groan and prayer for strength.

“Admit? No, I admit nothing. I have done nothing wrong; it is you three who have broken into my home for no justifiable reason, ruining extremely expensive and time-consuming wards in the process, and now look on the verge of attacking me. On the contrary, I have been extremely generous by not expelling you immediately.”

“Generous?” Yennefer asked, “or just incapable? You’re not the first man who’s grossly underestimated me.” She stepped forward, shielding both Geralt and Jaskier from view as stared Stregobor straight in the eyes, forcing him to concentrate on her. Jaskier saw a brief motion and a glint of glass from the corner of his eye; good, Geralt had managed to down a potion. “Nor are you the first man to overestimate his ‘generosity’.”

“Underestimated you?” Stregobor asked. “On the contrary, Yennefer, I would say that I’ve prepared perfectly.” He smiled, smug and condescending and Jaskier felt a spike of adrenaline rush through him as he tensed. Stregobor was too confident for a man outnumbered three to one, even taking into account the fact that Jaskier was one of the three. What had he planned?

“It was a trap, wasn’t it,” Jaskier said loudly, and Stregobor’s eyes move to focus on him. Good. That gave Yennefer enough time to prepare her own weapons. “The message that we received yesterday?” Jaskier was guessing, just trying to keep the mage distracted, but there was a pleased cast to the mage’s smirk that made him think that he was on the right track. As Jaskier continued to speak, bits and pieces of the puzzle started slotting themselves together in his head, spilling out so fast that he barely had time to think before the words were pouring out his mouth.

“Because as far as we can tell, no one has been near this village in _months_ \- unless you’ve been individually wiping all tracks and signs of travel in the woods for Melitele knows how long, no one has survived long enough to get to the village proper. You took Jagoda, you might have taken her granddaughter- I’m willing to bet that you also prey on people who want to _leave_ the village for whatever reason. Completely isolating the village; if no one knows what you’re doing, then nobody can stop you.”

Jaskier moved in front of Geralt and Yennefer, pulling away from their concerned hands, with a whispered “ _trust_ me”, until he was standing right in front of Stregobor. 

“But yesterday- yesterday was different, because a messenger got through to us. How? I doubt that you’d be careless enough to let a single person through your web, not when they could potentially bring tale of what you’ve been doing to the wider world- after all, if there was nothing to worry about why hide here in this small village? Why not claim your own tower on Thanedd, or hells any other kingdom? No, you know that this is something that not even the other mages would accept. So you let that messenger go on purpose. You must have known that Milosz is woefully unprepared for an emergency of any scale- perhaps you were even the driving force in appointing him as Alderman one month ago.”

“His father is an old family friend,” Stregobor agreed. “It was easy to suggest that his spare son be sent to do something useful for once in his life.”

Jaskier stiffened, but otherwise didn’t outwardly react.

“So you wanted to get us here,” he said, carefully studying Stregobor’s face for any inadvertent clues. “No. You wanted Yennefer and Geralt here.”

“I have no idea who you are, and I don’t care,” Stregobor agreed, and Jaskier suppressed an additional flash of anger because _rude_.

“You want them… because something isn’t working,” Jaskier said slowly. “Because those corpses that we found, Jagoda- though there was a transformation, it didn’t work as you wanted. She died. They all died.”

“A partial animal transformation has never been attempted,” Stregobor said. “Primarily because the unsuccessful attempts are so _dramatic._ What are the corpses of a few village peasants compared to the good that could come of my discoveries? Did you know that there exists a species of rodent in the South that is highly resistant to diseases of the skin? Or that there are certain species of jellyfish off the Skellige isles that don’t die, just regress to a more youthful state once they have reached a certain age? Why should we not learn the secrets of the natural world and _exploit_ them to better us all, mages and humans alike?”

Jaskier could hear whispering behind him, the faintest flashes of power coursing through him as Yennefer laid spells of protection on Geralt to supplement his potions.

“Humans,” Jaskier snorted, speaking louder to cover the noise. “You mean that you’re going to keep your favoured kings and queens in power and let the rest of us rot. Maybe a few other candidates- provided that they can pay an appropriate price.”

Stregobor shrugged. “Of course there are some more worthy than others,” he said with the surety of one who thought that he himself belonged to that select group.

Instead of punching him, Jaskier smiled tightly. Yennefer’s spells were coming to a close- it wouldn’t be much longer. “Of course,” he agreed through gritted teeth, “but that does beg the question as to _why_ you needed Yennefer and Geralt so badly that you were willing to take the risk of us stopping you.”

Stregobor stared at him for one long minute, and then laughed uproariously. “You think that a mutant, a failed sorceress, and a court jester really present any threat?”

“Oh, I don’t just think that we do,” Jaskier said, giving his own grin. There was silence behind him, charged and dangerous. “I know that we do.”

And with that he threw himself to the side and behind the nearest tree, well out of the way of Geralt’s swords and Yennefer’s spells. He knew what his part in these fights was, and it was definitely getting out of the way once his role was over; he didn’t want to distract either of them at a crucial moment.

The two of them burst into motion; Geralt moving so fast that he was a dark blur, and Yennefer releasing the ball of purple Chaos wreathing her hands, another one already forming in her hands. 

They were poetry in motion, their movements smooth and practiced and beautiful and Jaskier drank it in greedily. Perhaps he should write another poem once this whole fiasco was over; whisper it to his lovers in the darkest hours of the night, trace the words over their skin.

Stregobor _smiled._ He hadn’t moved an inch. And as Geralt swung his sword at him the ground _erupted_ , shimmering powder exploding straight into Geralt’s face. Geralt snarled and stumbled back, his strike aborted as he frantically tried to scrub the dust from his eyes. The purple light that had surrounded him was gone. For a moment, the garden flickered, and Jaskier could see dank stone before it stabilised itself again. Yennefer’s eyes widened.

“Dimeritium!” she shouted, the light in her palms abruptly blinking out; the first blast had already been extinguished by the metallic cloud that was settling innocently on the ground. “Geralt watch out-”

Geralt didn’t listen, charging ahead with a roar; Yennefer’s protections had been stripped from him, but he was still a Witcher. He was still Geralt of Rivia.

“This really is too easy,” Stregobor said, making a lazy gesture with his right hand. Chains, previously hidden, shot out from the sides of the pillars, wrapping themselves around Geralt’s legs and wrists like a serpent, coiling and squeezing. The Witcher tried to hack at them with his sword, it was swiftly taken from his grip, clattering across the floor to rest at Stregobor’s feet. One particularly thick coil wound itself around Geralt’s through and started to tighten; Jaskier could hear the Witcher’s surprised choke from his place behind the tree.

Yennefer screamed and made a sharp gesture- her voice echoed around the tower, shaking the walls and shattering the illusion further; the fountain and the trees and the marble vanished, and nothing was left but the inside of a dilapidated tower. Stregobor stumbled back, buffered by the force of the Chaos, but the chains around Geralt continued to tighten, dragging him back against the far wall.

“Geralt!” Jaskier called out, starting forward to- help? Be with him? Do something that wasn’t standing behind a tree?- but Geralt caught his eyes and shook his head _no_ at the bard, desperation filling his eyes.

Jaskier hesitated and in that moment Stregobor, blood dripping steadily from a piece of shrapnel, barked out a command that fell strangely heavily into the air, and the smooth stone of the floor around Yennefer started to _melt._

The sorceress cursed, power flaring around her as she tried to free herself from the quagmire, but to no effect. She was trapped in place. Glaring up at Stregobor, she raised her hands to send another blast of power at him-

-and two stone pillars rose from the ground, encasing her hands within them.

Geralt growled, thrashing wildly to break the chains, but they were too strong, and he only succeeded in choking himself. Jaskier swore under his breath and- unobtrusively as possible- began to make his way over to Geralt. He might- however unlikely- be able to help with magical chains, but he would be of no use against a stone floor.

“Fuck you Stregobor!” Yennefer spat. “You motherfucking arsehole-”

“You see, Geralt, once I knew that I needed a Witcher I had time to prepare,” Stregobor said, once more seemingly nonchalant now that his two foes had been successfully neutralised. He didn’t appear to consider Jaskier a threat- well, more fool him. “Witchers are stronger than the average human, of course, and you do have some kind of base cunning- but with the proper preparation you are no harder to tame than any other wild animal. And Yennefer? She might have the raw power, but I have had centuries more to refine my magic. She didn’t stand a chance against me.”

“What do you want, Stregobor,” Geralt rasped. “You’ve taken great pains not to kill us. Why.”

“A little more than base cunning, it seems,” Stregobor said. He picked up Geralt’s sword, idly twisting it in his hand before he got bored and threw it down again. “I need the mutagens that run through your veins, of course,” he said. “The secrets to creating Witchers were lost when the Schools fell, but I am certain that with a proper test subject I can recreate them.”

Geralt’s eyes hardened and he stopped struggling, staring directly at Stregobor.

Jaskier, from where he was creeping up from behind Stregobor, could see Yennefer in the background, muttering furiously. Her nose was bleeding and her hair was so dust covered that it resembled Geralt’s, but the stone columns that were binding her hands were glowing red. 

“I have been through the Trials of the Grasses twice before,” he said. “I wouldn’t subject anyone else to them.”

“You couldn’t stop me,” Stregobor said genially, “even if I did want to recreate that barbarity. No, the mutant Witchers will die out like the abominations that they are, but you Geralt- You’re the missing piece. The plasticity of your cells is the missing piece of the puzzle. You will have the honour of being my first successful hybrid.”

Geralt spat at him, the phlegm falling well short of the mage. His eyes shifted to stare straight at Jaskier, still making his cautious approach. _Go_ his golden eyes seemed to scream. _Save yourself._ But Jaskier wasn’t going to leave him. Not when- once you looked past his bravado- he looked as though he was going to pass out at any minute. He might be a somewhat useless in a fight, but he wasn’t a coward. He wasn’t going to leave Yennefer and Geralt to this monster.

“Well which one is it?” the Witcher growled. “Pet or test subject? You’d better get it quickly, Stregobor, or I might die of boredom from your monotonous and unoriginal monologue. I’ve heard milk wives with more interesting things to say than you. At least their gossip is entertaining.”

“I hope you enjoy those words,” Stregobor said. “They might be your last.” Then he raised his hands and started to chant, his hands burning yellow.

Geralt still hadn’t moved; he just stared at the mage in resignation.

Jaskier exploded into motion; he picked up Geralt’s sword with a rasp of metal on wood and threw it as close to Geralt as he could manage. The mage half-turned toward him, eyes widening; too caught in the spell he was weaving, he couldn’t defend himself. And that was when Jaskier tackled him.

#

Pain.

Exploding through his body, sharp and deep and everywhere at once-

(“Stregobor! You fucking bastard, Stregobor-”)

He screamed, a sound more animal than human at the sensation. The world was blurred around him, all that Jaskier was retreating beneath the onslaught of sensation.

There was venom running in his veins and it burned to the touch, bringing cramps and convulsions in its wake. Not numbness, though. Not unconsciousness. Nothing as kind.

(An explosion and the distant pinpricks of pain as shards of rock exploded outward, the rattle of loosened chains)

The itching in Jaskier’s skin was almost a relief, at first. It was a respite from the pain. And then it surged and intensified and he couldn’t feel anything _but_ the itching. He keened, gouging at his arms to try and stop it-

(“-you can’t do this! I must be taken for fair trial, Yennefer of Vengerberg you cannot _do_ this-”)

Something inside Jaskier shifted and then he was on his side heaving. The flow of black, congealed liquid didn’t stop; he couldn’t breathe through it not at all, but he also couldn’t stop-

(More blood splattered over Jaskier; not his for once but he wasn’t able to tell-)

The rush of vomit finally stopped, and Jaskier took deep, panicked breaths. There were chunks of white glinting in the black mess that he’d just expelled- something that looked like _bone_ -

(“ _Yennefer!_ It’s already started- do something, please-”)

His eyes burned, and there’s no relief, none at all-

(“Jaskier! Can you hear me Jaskier? Jaskier, you self-sacrificing idiot, if you die because of this I will never forgive you, do you understand? I will _never forgive you-_ ”)

The world blurred around him, sweet darkness rising up and he embraced it wholeheartedly.

The final thing that Jaskier saw before the end was Geralt and Yennefer, knelt before him. There was blood and dust covered every inch of them, Geralt’s hair tangled and plastered to the side of his head, Yennefer’s hands bright red and painful- but he had never seen a more beautiful image in his life.

_Love you_ , he managed to mouth, and then he slipped away.

#

_“-fuck fuck fuck-”_

#

_Jaskier blinked his eyes open._

_(Jaskier. Yes, his name was Jaskier)._

_There was an endless plane of white around him._

_He got to his feet slowly, hands tightly clenched around something- glancing down he could see that it was a musical instrument._

_“Huh,” he said._

#

_“-he’s light, was he always this light?-”_

#

_There was a wolf staring at him with luminous golden eyes. Its fur was long and silken and Jaskier’s hands fluttered with the need to run his fingers through it._

_“Well, aren’t you a beauty,” he said. His voice fell strangely flat and he looked around in confusion. He didn’t know where he was- he couldn’t even remember where he had been._

_“That’s strange,” he said to the wolf. “I’m sure that it’s nothing to worry about, though.”_

_Giving in to temptation, he reached forward to pet his ears and-_

_“Ow!” he cried, cradling his hand to his chest where the wolf had just bitten him._

_The wolf walked away._

#

_“-his arms, Melitele his arms-”_

#

_Jaskier rolled his shoulders irritably. They ached; not painful exactly, but inescapably present. He didn’t sleep exactly, but whenever he threw himself down to the floor in a pique to angrily strum at his lute they throbbed._

_He couldn’t think what it could be; it wasn’t as though he had become thirsty or hungry or tired in this void, no matter that he thought he should have a while ago. No matter how far he walked, his feet did not ache._

_“So this has to be something Witcher-y,” he said to himself. He frowned. “Witcher-y?” he repeated. “Witcher-” he drew the word out, feeling it roll around his mouth. Huh. He didn’t know what a Witcher was. But it seemed important._

_Jaskier didn’t know how long he searched for the wolf. He had a suspicion that something was wrong, that he shouldn’t be in this featureless realm, alone without anything but his lute._

_He could not, however, do anything else._

_So he plucked at his lute and wandered._

#

_“-don’t care about the risks Yennefer, just take it-”_

#

_There was a shape in the distance, and Jaskier hurried forward, his lute banging uncomfortable on his back. It had been so long since the wolf, so long since he had seen anything._

_He- he didn’t know how long exactly, but he knew that he was going insane in this lifeless place. He needed something to break the monotony. Anything._

_Running closer, he could see that there were three figures in the distance. Well. Figures might be a strong word._

_The first thing that he noticed was the snake. It was a dusty brown with salt and pepper speckles scattered around its scales. Its hooded head was decorated with a dark U; the same colour as the banding that started at its neck and trailed down to its belly. Jaskier had never seen a snake like it but had heard descriptions of them from one particular professor in the Biology department at Oxenfurt who enjoyed edifying her colleagues on the subject of rare snakes and snake venoms of the Eastern Continent._

_(Oxenfurt, he had gone to Oxenfurt)._

_The snake was curled protectively around a bright red fox, baring its teeth and snapping- Jaskier squinted closer- a screech owl. Well, that was bizarre._

_The owl gave a piercing cry and wheeled around to try and claw the snake’s eyes out; Jaskier shouted a warning, but the snake did not need it- swayed back to avoid the blow and, faster than the owl could react, swung its head around to sink its fangs into the owl’s wing._

_There was a scream- and one that sounded more human than Jaskier was more comfortable with- and the owl flew away, listing severely to the left as it favoured its injured wing._

_The snake turned to stare at him, hissing._

_Jaskier backed away and left them be._

#

_“-I love him too. You can’t accuse me of-”_

#

_His back was killing him._

_He groaned, clutching his lute more tightly. He couldn’t bear to carry it on his back any longer; he could hardly bear the feel of the light chemise he was wearing as it shifted against his skin._

_Something in his back twitched and he bit back a scream. What was happening?_

_The twitching continued; it was involuntary, extremely painful, and worst of all it was random. He didn’t know when the next spasm was coming, nor could he discern any pattern._

_He was helpless. He was alone._

#

_“-won’t wake up-”_

#

_Minutes, hours, days, weeks later he opened his eyes and stared straight into golden eyes. The wolf. It was the wolf._

_“You came back,” he rasped, trying to sit up. He failed, too weak and weary and strangely off-balance, instead collapsing back down onto the floor._

_He didn’t care. He was too glad that someone had come back to him. Even if that someone had bitten him and run off the last time he had seen him._

_There was a small regal ‘mroaw’ to the left of him, and Jaskier’s eyes widened as another animal padded into view._

_The black cat meowed again imperiously, fixing its purple eyes on him with such disappointed scorn that Jaskier had to bite back the instinctive urge to apologise._

_“You brought a friend?” Jaskier said. “Hah.” He tried to move again, this time managing to prop himself up on his side._

_The cat sniffed imperiously and then walked off. The wolf followed._

_Jaskier lay back down, exhausted from his one small exertion. He did not, however, feel the same despair. He had a feeling that they’d be back._

#

_“-why would you do that Jaskier, why didn’t you just run-”_

#

_The next time he opened his eyes, it was to see the wolf sat on its haunches in front of him, the cat calmly licking a paw to the side._

_“You’re back,” he said. He did not have the energy to do anything more. The wolf snorted as if to say, ‘of course I’m back’ and Jaskier glared at him._

_“Well excuse me for being a bit surprised,” he said. “After all, the last time you left you didn’t return for-” he paused, unsure as to how to finish that sentence. The sun didn’t rise and the sun didn’t set, and without such things as hunger pangs it was hard to gauge how much time had passed. “-ages,” he finished awkwardly._

_The cat walked forward, and Jaskier eyes her warily; he trusted her the same way that he had instinctively trusted the wolf, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t wary. After all, the wolf had bitten him the first time they had met._

_The cat padded behind him, clambering onto him- Jaskier winced at the shocks of pain that shot through his body- and settled in the small of his back. She started purring, a surprisingly deep noise, and Jaskier suppressed an illogical sneeze at the feel of her fur on his bare skin._

_“Not the best place you could have chosen,” he groaned, acutely aware at the way that her claws dug into the sensitive flesh._

_The cat flexed her muscles in warning and then Jaskier shuddered as her rasping tongue started to lick and clean his back. Or- at least what he thought was his back. The sensation was strange, and it left pins and needles in its wake as though the cat’s touch had woken something._

_“What,” Jaskier said, “what are you doing?” He tried to twist around, but that just earned him a gentle swat on the back of his head._

_The cat meowed- high and imperious- and the wolf got up, walked to Jaskier’s side, and lay down, butting his head against his shoulder._

_“What are you doing?” Jaskier asked again, but he got no answer from either of them, other than a sympathetic glance from the wolf. Could wolves give sympathetic glances? Both the wolf and the cat felt far smarter than they had any right to be._

_Jaskier sighed, resigned to his fate. He relaxed under the cat’s ministrations and- closing his eyes- drifted gently to sleep._

#

_“-can he see us?”_

#

_He was warm, incredibly warm, the next time he woke up. There was something soft and warm by his side and something else draped over his back, and he snuggled deeper into it, reluctant to move._

_There was an amused huff, and then something damp was pushing at his neck._

_“G’rlt? Y’nnf’r?” he murmured, still half asleep. “What’s-”_

_He opened his eyes. And then sat bolt upright. The cat yowled angrily at him as she fell off his back- to which the wolf replied with an amused chuff- but Jaskier was too busy panicking out to acknowledge just how adorable the interplay was._

_Because when he sat up- without pain for the first time in however long- something else moved with him. Something bright blue and attached to him._

_“Fuck! What the fuck is that?” Jaskier yelped, flailing. The blue **things** flared automatically, pulling at his back and at somewhere deep in his chest. Watching- and worse feeling- them move discombobulated him to the point that he would have fallen over were it not for the quick actions of the wolf, who leaned against him to steady him. _

_“Um,” said Jaskier, his voice soft and not in any way, shape, or form freaking out. “Do I- I mean this is a long shot, maybe, but I. Erm. I- Do I have something on my back?”_

_The cat gave him a condescending look. He wasn’t certain whether it was capable of any other looks, honestly._

_“I’ll take that as a yes, then,” he said._

_Jaskier gave the things on his back a tentative flap. They felt a little numb, but as he started to move them the tingling pain of pins and needles flooded in and he groaned. The feeling quickly subsided, though, leaving them easy to manipulate. They were surprisingly flexible, and he managed to stretch one of the things out so that he could peer at it without straining his neck too much._

_He stopped and stared. Because it was a wing. Predominantly dark blue, the feathers were barred with a bright sky blue._

_“Huh,” he said._

#

_“Fuck! What the fuck was that on his eyes-”_

#

_“Well, I suppose that this might as well happen,” Jaskier muttered. He had draped himself over the wolf, eyes closed. The cat was a purring warmth on his lap, and he petted her absently. His wings were draped out behind him, and would have been dragging in the dirt, if there was been any dirt in this strange place._

_“And since there’s no dirt here, there’s no point in getting annoyed at me for wasting your hard work,” he told the cat, who had given him another unimpressed look when he had first flopped onto the ground._

_She did, however, graciously allow his continued petting._

_“You know,” Jaskier said. “I have no idea what’s going on, Yennefer, but I do think that this is the strangest predicament I have ever got myself…” his voice trailed off and his hand stilled._

_“Yennefer,” he said and that same strange emotion that had surged in him as he had spoken the name increased from a trickle to a flood. He looked down. The cat was staring back up at him with her wide purple eyes. Twisting to look behind him, Jaskier could see that Geralt was doing the same, eyes fixed on his face with something very much like hope. Geralt. Geralt._

_“Geralt,” Jaskier whispered, and then winced at the rush of **feeling.** If Yennefer’s name had unlocked a flood, Geralt’s name had become a torrent; uncontrolled and surrounding him. _

_Distantly, he realised that he had started to cry._

_“Geralt and Yennefer,” he said. “Yennefer and Geralt. That’s you. That’s both of you! But there’s something wrong. You shouldn’t be like thing, I shouldn’t be like this, what-”_

_There was a pain in his head, increasing by the second. He blinked and for a second, the cat and thee wolf were replaced by dearly familiar figures, white hair and black and their eyes unchanged staring at him. He blinked and they were animals once more._

_“Geralt and Yennefer,” he said, the pain in his head increasing with each repetition. “Geralt and Yennefer, Geralt and Yennefer, Geralt and Yennefer-”_

#

_“Jaskier, you need to-”_

#

_WAKE UP_

Jaskier woke. That was surprising. That was something that he wasn’t expecting to do again.

His head was killing him, and his throat ached, and he felt as though he had been flung from the top of the Chancellor’s building in Oxenfurt and had been refused any painkillers.

(The last, strange vestiges of a dream slipped away).

But he was awake.

“Jaskier,” a voice said beside him, rough with emotion.

Jaskier opened his eyes. He was lying in _their_ bed, back at home, and Geralt was sitting in a chair next to him. There was a bestiary lying abandoned on the floor beside him, and Jaskier blinked in confusion because Geralt was practically feral when it came to respecting the sanctity of his books-

Geralt was also holding out a glass filled with water. Jaskier whined despite himself, eyes fixed on that most holy of ambrosias and Geralt chuckled at the sound. It had a faint edge of hysteria to it.

“Do you want-”

“ _Yes._ ”

Jaskier snatched the glass- only wavering slightly under its unexpected weight- and drank greedily, almost sobbing in relief as it ran cool and clear down his throat. After a couple of seconds, Geralt pulled the glass away from him. Jaskier let out a wordless protest, trying to grab it back, but he was no match against even normal human strength at the moment, and they both knew it.

“You can have more later,” Geralt said, setting the glass on a side table and out of Jaskier’s reach, and the bard scowled at him, but Geralt remained resolute. “You’ve been…unconscious…for five days. You can have more later, when you won’t just puke it up.”

Jaskier huffed, unable- and unwilling- to stop a large grin from stretching across his face.

“How cruel you are,” he said. “I bet that Yennefer’ll give me water. She likes me best, you realise-”

“I see that you’ve become even more delusional.”

Yennefer was leaning against the door to their bedroom, hair tightly plaited back and out of her face, and deep shadows under her eyes. Jaskier frowned and glanced over at Geralt who was also looking the worse for wear; pale and drawn in a way he only looked after a particularly gruesome fight.

“Who died?” he asked, yelping as Geralt punched his shoulder. Not hard, true. But it was the principle of the matter. The Witcher snorted, his mouth twitching up into a small smile.

“Almost you, you idiot,” Yennefer said, crossing the room and dropping heavily onto the bed. “What were you thinking, tackling Stregobor when he was in the middle of spell?”

“I was thinking,” Jaskier said, “that tackling him at that moment was the best time to do it so that he didn’t have the chance to defend himself. And considering that we’re all here and we’re all alive, I would appreciate a ‘thank you Jaskier,’ for my troubles.” He hesitated, then muttered, “And I didn’t want him to finish casting that spell on Geralt. You’ve- you’ve been through enough. Just looking at the bodies was hard for you- I didn’t want you to have to go through it again.”

“And you thought that I would be happier- that either of us would be happier- watching you go through a painful and very potentially fatal transformation instead?”

“Yes! No! I don’t know! It was all very spur of the moment.”

Geralt closed his eyes and tilted his head toward the heavens in a silent plea for strength.

“That’s the sort of self-sacrificial bullshit that I thought I’d hear from Geralt, not you,” Yennefer said. Geralt made a sound of protest, eyes still closed, but didn’t interject. They all knew that he was definitely a self-sacrificial idiot; there was no argument to be made against it.

“Let me make this abundantly clear, Jaskier. If you do anything like that again, then I will magically chain you to either myself or Geralt for the rest of your existence. You won’t even be able to _shit_ without us accompanying you.”

“Hah. Kinky,” Jaskier said, but his heart wasn’t in it, especially as both Yennefer and Geralt looked absolutely serious. He sighed.

“Look, as I said it wasn’t something that I planned on doing,” he said. “And I can’t promise that I won’t do something like it again- though I am going to try my best to avoid it, because I feel like crap- because I refuse to see you and Geralt suffer for even one second if there’s anything that I can do to stop it. And that includes throwing myself at megalomaniacal mages with a god complex.” He shrugged, and then regretted it; he hurt everywhere.

Yennefer did not look happy at his answer; that was too bad for her because he wasn’t going to change it. The three of them were _family._ And anyway, he was completely, 100% certain that both of them would have done the same thing (and had in similar circumstances had in fact done the same thing).

“What did happen to Stregobor anyway?” Jaskier asked, frowning. “I have to admit, my memories do get a bit hazy there toward the end.” He almost added something flippant like ‘ _probably because of the excruciating pain’_ but decided against it, namely because he was fairly certain that Yennefer wasn’t bluffing, and he did enjoy having some private time.

“I killed him,” Geralt said.

Jaskier waited a few seconds.

“As descriptive as ever,” he said. He reached over to take Geralt’s hand. “And are you ok with that?” he asked. “I- Seeing Stregobor there must have been hard-”

“His death means less than nothing to me,” Geralt said. “It was pest control. I was concentrated on something more important.”

“Making sure that you didn’t die from the curse that had already killed at least a dozen people,” Yennefer said. “Which, in a fair and just world, is a feat of magic that should guarantee me at least five papers and the title of Master.”

“And I am truly grateful at your power and talent,” Jaskier said. “I was not looking forward to dying as a twisted version of myself. How _did_ you stop the curse’s progression?”

“Geralt,” Yennefer said. “And the Witcher mutagens flowing through his veins. I’ve been giving you blood transfusions for the past five days. Stregobor, despite his numerous and varied faults and complete lack of ethical code, was correct when he hypothesised that Witcher mutagens would help.”

“Oh,” Jaskier said. “Geralt, I- thank you. I don’t-”

“Don’t say that you don’t know how to repay me,” Geralt said. “It was my choice. And-” he hesitated, bracing himself. “It was too late.”

“What?” Jaskier frowned, confused. “Forgive me, but from where I’m standing- lying- I’m still alive, which in my books means that the treatment was a perfect success.”

Geralt and Yennefer exchanged a look. And then Yennefer was gently taking his arm and rolling back the sleeves of the oversized chemise he was wearing- one of Geralt’s he was almost certain- to expose his forearm. Which was completely covered in blue feathers.

“The transformation had already started,” Yennefer said. “Killing Stregobor stopped it from progressing much further, but your body had already started to reject the changes.”

Jaskier stared down at his arm. He gently stroked the feathers, shivering a little at the strange sensation.

“It’s just your arms,” Geralt said, filling the silence. “And- your bones, we think. You’re light- lighter than usual. We think you lost some bone density.”

“I’m in the process of fixing that,” Yennefer said, narrowing her eyes. “Give me another week. I also noticed a nictitating membrane in your eyes; I’ve done some research, and you should be able to control it. It also shouldn’t affect your vision-” She trailed off. Exchanged another glance with Geralt.

“Jaskier,” Geralt said. “Say something. Please.”

Jaskier looked up at them, his best beloveds. They both looked tense; Yennefer in particular appeared ready to cast a calming spell on him at a moment’s notice.

Jaskier laughed. “I don’t care,” he said. “I don’t care about the feathers, or the bones, or whatever that membrane that you spoke of is- I care that you’re both safe and unharmed. I mean, I’m not saying that I don’t reserve the right to have a proper freak out later- because this truly is something else- but I would sacrifice so much more than this for you.”

He reached forward and drew them both toward him; his touches were light but both Yennefer and Geralt submitted to them willingly, allowing him to draw them up onto the bed with him.

“I’ll hide my arms with my doublet,” he said, “or I won’t and will gain renown as the famous feathered bard. Either way, I know that I will be safe and happy. Because I have you two with me.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yennefer, Jaskier, and Geralt flirting around dead bodies became a far more significant portion of this story than anticipated! (The anticipate amount was 0% tbf).  
> Aridean came from Queen Aridea (Renfri’s stepmother) because I needed a pseudonym and just frantically scrolled through Stregobor’s entry on the wiki. 
> 
> Each corpse/transformation was based on an animal:  
> -the first on a [red fox](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/r/red-fox/)  
> -Jagoda on a [spectacled cobra](https://www.mangalorean.com/whats-that-hissing-sound-1-year-old-spectacled-cobra-caught-at-dias-villa-lady-hill-in-city/)  
> -Jaskier on a [bluejay](https://jocelynandersonphotographyshop.com/products/blue-jay-in-flight)
> 
> Stregobor was represented by a [screech owl](https://audubonnatureinstitute.org/aquarium/eastern-screech-owl) at one point in the dream sequence, just because I took one look at this picture and burst out laughing.
> 
> I am on Tumblr as [Nemainofthewater ](https://nemainofthewater.tumblr.com)


End file.
